Education is a panacea for all ills in society, particularly in minority communities, and needs more focus on it, speakers at a one-day state educational conference organised by the state unit of All India Muslim Educational Society (AIMES) here on Sunday, said.
Asif Pasha, former minister for minorities welfare and currently president of AIMES, said the government was giving funds and introducing schemes but several Muslims were not aware of them.
Claiming that Muslims were more backward than Scheduled Castes, as stated by the Sachar and Srikrishna committees, he said Muslims should not solely depend on the government but, instead , look for solutions to their problems on their own. ‘’Education and our perception of it should change in tune with the changing times. We must adapt to the changes,’’ he said.
Pune-based MCE Society president AP Inamdar said that Muslims should first start believing that they have progressed and achieved something post independence. ‘’Leadership should desist from making depressing speeches and playing on emotions, which is creating inferiority complex among the youth. They should be positive and encourage the youth to be optimistic about future, which will yield good results,’’ he said.
He called upon leaders in society to start thinking about others in the society as they think about their own children. He said to achieve anything, being in power is paramount, hence it should be the first goal. He said technology should be adopted from the school level and equal emphasis be laid on all the languages.
Uttarakhand governor Aziz Qureshi said in his message that the conference was the need of the hour. He stressed the need for educating Muslim girls. He said backwardness in education led to backwardness in economics which, in turn, leads to backwardness on the social front and in education. Educational backwardness is curse in the present-day knowledge-based society, Qureshi said.
CPI leader Aziz Pasha and Zafer Javed, general secretary of Sultan-ul-Uloom educational institutions, spoke.
Supreme Court advocate Wasi Ahamed Nomani spoke on flaws of the rule of reservation. Ahamedullah Khan, former principal of law college of Osmania University, spoke on the role of judiciary in minorities education.