SUMMARY
Few know that Muslims - and not Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - are the most educationally disadvantaged group in India, having the lowest rates of school and higher education enrolment. Far fewer are aware that Indian Muslim children under 5 years have among the highest rates of stunting, resulting mainly from chronic child malnutrition. Equally unrecognised, and therefore entirely overlooked, are the 31 million poor and lower middle class Indian Muslim youth under 25 years outside schools and colleges - with extremely limited literacy and numeracy skills - whose numbers are larger than their disadvantaged Muslim student peers enrolled in the formal educational system.
Cumulatively, these three indicators of development and educational backwardness of Muslims have a considerable impact on every aspect of their lives: literacy and numeracy, academic performance and intellectual development, health, jobs, employable and life-enhancing skills and knowledge, as well as their contribution to India’s overall political, social and economic development.
By 2050, it is estimated that India’ Muslim population at about 310 million Muslims will be larger than any other country in the world, including Pakistan and Indonesia. In 2020, Indian Muslims compose about 15% of the country’s population, and the most disadvantaged among them are the poor and lower middle class, who compose more than 80%of Muslims in India. Therefore, discussions on educational reform of Indian Muslims cannot continue to be limited to better access to schools and higher education, Urdu medium schooling and madrasas. If a transformational education is to be the key to lifting Muslims from the morass that they find themselves in, it must focus on the development and education of poor and lower middle class Muslims under 25 years.
This independent and non-commissioned report highlights four key issues of a new agenda that needs to be implemented:
1. Education has to be broadly defined extending beyond formal education. Its new goals must prioritise and focus on the development and education of poor and lower middle class Muslims under 25 years numbering 79 million, as follows: improving and expanding Early Childhood Development and Education (ECCE) programmes for 21 million children between birth- six years; twelve years of quality school education for 27 million students; and improving education and training opportunities for 31 million out-of school and college youth.
2. This report delineates various features of the rationale for this agenda; its three inter-dependent goals; and articulates various implementation issues involved in transforming the development and learning of India’s vulnerable Muslim population. At 79 million disadvantaged Muslims under 25 years, this group is larger than the population of France, Italy or South Africa.
3. Only government - Centre, State and Sub-State - has the primary responsibility, human and financial resources and the institutional outreach capacity to meet this enormous challenge, which has been made even more difficult at present by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
4. Finally, this report highlights the indispensable role of Muslim organisations and Civil Society groups in implementing this agenda. It lists a series of two main types of recommendations: advocacy activities - primarily focused on ensuring that government fulfils its responsibilities - as well as complementary community-based learning initiatives, for realising all three goals of the agenda.
This transformational education agenda’s knowledge and experiential foundation has 3 features:
1. An analysis based on a variety of secondary education sources: relevant books, official reports, national and international development and education data, etc.
2. A national and international consensus built over three decades on what needs to be done to improve the education of large disadvantaged groups.
3. The author’s experience over three decades as an academic researcher, and active engagement in directing small and large-scale projects in different states of India to improve the development and education of poor rural and urban infants and children, students and youth under 25 years, while also participating in state, national and international bodies and discussions.
This report uploaded is a much shorter and updated version of an earlier 2019 report.
IMPLEMENTATION RECOMMENDATIONS
The following recommendations flow from discussions in various sections of the report, and also proposals made in them. They delineate a range of concrete activities that can be undertaken by interested organisations and individuals, and have been listed under two broad categories: advocacy activities and community-based learning initiatives.
Section 7 of the report articulates the indispensable role of Muslim organisations and Civil Society groups in implementing these two categories of activities. Advocacy activities include pressuring / engaging / collaborating with government departments, agencies and institutions at all levels - Centre, State, Sub-State, anganwadis and schools, and to a lesser extent and more indirectly the private low-cost school sector - to implement all three goals of the new education agenda. These organisations are also expected to institutionalise varied complementary community-based learning initiatives to meet unmet learning needs and information-poor environments for disadvantaged Muslim communities.
It is important to highlight that both advocacy activities and community-based initiatives need to be implemented at present, keeping in mind the special challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, detailed in Section 6, as well as the recommendations and omissions/ deficiencies of the 2020 NEP articulated in Section 5 of the report
8.1 Recommendations for Implementing Goal 1 - Advocacy Activities and Community-Based Learning Initiatives by Muslim Organisations and Civil Society Groups - 12 Years of Quality Education for Vulnerable Muslim Students Leading to Relevant Learning Outcomes
8.1.1. Advocacy Activities – School Enrolment Policies and Programmes
1. Enable disadvantaged Muslims student to receive 12 in years of quality education in ‘free’ regional medium government schools
2. Focus on ‘backward’ districts in which Muslim school enrolment is poor
3. Prioritise Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, M. P., Rajasthan and U.P., which contain 45% of Indian Muslims and the largest number of such districts. Maximum attention to Uttar Pradesh.
4. Increase government secondary schools and access for male and female Muslim students
5. Increase provision of government scholarships for Muslim students
6. Publish official data on Muslim enrolment, scholarships, examinations, etc., including NCERT, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas, similar in all respects to that currently provided for SCs and STs.
7. Maximise Muslim participation in local bodies (District Panchayats, Municipal School Corporations and SMCs/PTAs) to ensure the above schemes are properly funded and implemented .
8.1.2. Advocacy Activities – School Learning Policies and Programmes
1. Repurpose Muslim girls’ education to enable employment options beyond the domestic front.
2. Further madrasa reform, and promote the Kerala model of part-time religious instruction in madrasas/maktabs, and separate mainstream schooling.
3. Strengthen school readiness, and foundational literacy and numeracy in Classes 1 and 2.
4. Provide remedial / support classes focusing at present on learning losses due to the pandemic.
5. Maximise teachers’ professional development and subject matter competency - especially English.
6. Promote constitutional principles and values in textbooks and classroom transactions.
7. Increase Muslim participation in SMCs/ PTAS to promote student safety, enrolment and learning.
8.1.3. Community- Based Learning Initiatives Related to School Students
1. Run community centres for libraries, support classes, examination coaching and English courses.
2. Motivate vulnerable Muslim students to remain and excel in school, and provide extracurricular activities
3. Enable enrolments in Navodaya Vidyalayas, KGBVS, and private schools through RTE .
4. Provide education and career counselling, as widely as possible to Muslim students
5. Inspire and mentor all, especially Muslim girls, to aspire to education and careers off the beaten track.
6. Initiate parent discussion forums on schooling issues such as the importance of regular attendance and completion of schooling, learning and the pros and cons of Urdu /English / Regional medium schools, and enrolment in “free” government schools as opposed to low-cost private schools.
8.2 Recommendations for Implementing Goal 2 - Advocacy Activities and Community-Based Learning Initiatives by Muslim Organisations and Civil Society Groups - Ensure Vulnerable Muslim Children Between Birth - 6 Years Benefit From Access to Early Childhood Development and Care (ECCE) Programmes, Including 3 Years Of Pre-Primary Education
8.2.1. Advocacy Initiatives - Improving ECCE Access and Quality
1. Expand ICDS programmes in all states with a focus on states like U.P. and Bihar with limited ICDS facilities, and large Muslim populations
2. Provide qualitative inputs in ICDS including a focus on infants in the birth-3 years stage. Government and community efforts to promote the education of Muslim caregivers, involving good nutrition practices complemented by psychosocial stimulation of infants, and safe and nurturing home environments. This is particularly important in the BIMARU region in which the vast majority of districts have extremely high stunting rates of Muslim children.
3. Provision of disaggregated data on ICDS beneficiaries, including Muslim women & children.
4. Ensure publicity of schemes and other measures to enable and improve access to ICDS facilities by poorly-served Muslim communities, women and children.
8.2.2. Community-Based Learning Initiatives – Promoting ECCE Access and Quality
1. Publicise and promote better utilisation of ICDs facilities by Muslim mothers and children.
2. Implement community-based programmes focusing on building capacities of Muslim caregivers to provide home-based holistic child-care, with a focus on psychosocial stimulation of infants in the birth-3 years age-group – a feature presently missing in ICDS
3. Run affordable quality preschool programmes and creches for Muslim beneficiaries.
8.3. Recommendations for Implementing Goal 3 - Advocacy Activities and Community-Based Learning Initiatives by Muslim Organisations and Civil Society Groups - Ensure All Poor and Lower Middle Class Muslim Youth Under 25 Years Outside Schools and Colleges Have Better Access to Quality Educational Opportunities and Vocational Training.
8.3.1. Advocacy Activities – Policies and Programmes for Disadvantaged Out-of School and College Muslim Youth Under 25 years
1. Provide programmes for formal education, literacy, women’s empowerment and skill training, which are limited and underutilised by Muslims - need for expansion with a focus on young vulnerable Muslims.
2. Publish data on Muslim beneficiaries in all the above official programmes and schemes.
3. Raise participation of Muslims in NIOS to enhance formal educational qualifications
4. Expand currently limited participation of Muslim women and girls in empowerment and education programmes for disadvantaged females such as Mahila Samakhya (MS) and KGBVs.
5. Reduce Illiteracy in Muslim youth through literacy programmes focusing on the following six states containing 45% of Indian Muslims – U.P., Bihar, Jharkhand, M.P., Rajasthan and Gujarat.
6. Enable access of young Muslim couples to government family planning information and services
7. Promote access of Muslim youth to short-term skilling courses of the NSDC, and the longer vocational training of the ITIs and the Craftsmen Apprenticeship Scheme, through measures such as subsidising admission
8.3.2. Community- Based Learning Initiatives for Out-of School and College Muslim Youth
1. Optimise educational and employment opportunities for poor and lower middle class Muslim students and youth living in information-poor environments through education and career counselling with a focus on engagement with suitable role-models and mentors.
2. Provide support classes and English courses for improving education and job prospects.
3. Provide community forums for discussions of youth-related concerns and challenges.
4. Provide family planning and parental education for young Muslim couples.
8.4. Recommendations - The Way Forward
Depending on their own interests and needs, Muslim organisations and Civil Society Groups can engage in one or more of the activities listed in the previous recommendations. All these initiatives need different forms of academic, pedagogic and managerial expertise; for example, working with government on policy and large-scale schemes, and implementation of community-level learning initiatives like running English classes, require different sets of knowledge and skills. It is therefore important for Muslim organisations and other Civil society groups to collaborate with other organisations and individuals when required that can provide the necessary expertise.
This agenda calls for a new compact between different groups– a collaboration of Muslim organisations and Civil Society Groups; government departments; training institutions and schools; sympathetic political parties; private enterprise; youth groups; funding agencies and vulnerable Muslim communities. Implicit in the agenda’s recommendation is that these Muslim communities are not mere collectives of potential beneficiaries, but that the active involvement of students, youth and older Muslim community members in discussing and implementing these proposals will itself make them more informed and active Indian citizens, carving out a better future for themselves. The impact of the pandemic on the recommendations makes this active participation even more consequential.
While facing serious existential and survival challenges in various parts of the country, it is difficult for Indian Muslims to articulate the paths that can lift them from the deepening quagmire they find themselves in, and visualise a future in which their security, material and social prospects will have visibly improved. However difficult the task may be, there is no alternative to a critical introspection about the enormous challenges and wide-ranging educational initiatives that need to be implemented to promote the development and education of 79 million vulnerable Indian Muslims under 25 years. It is hoped that this report and the concrete reforms it advocates will catalyse this discussion on the way forward for Indian Muslims.
Seize the day, for as Shakespeare reminds us:
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures”