NEW DELHI: The Central government will commission a study to ascertain reasons for high dropouts of Muslim students in India. According to the 2006 Sachar Committee Report, “one-fourth of Muslim children aged between 6-14 have either never attended school or are dropouts”.
The data collected by the Ministry of Minority Affairs will be used to frame “policy programmes” to contain the dismal trend. The Parliamentary Panel on Social Justice and Empowerment has noted that no special committee, including the Sachar Committee—commissioned in 2005 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prepare a report on the social, economic, and educational conditions of Indian Muslims—has given reasons behind the dropout rates. Successive governments have been rolling out populist scholarship schemes without studying the community’s requirements.
The Lok Sabha Standing Committee headed by Chhattisgarh MP Ramesh Bais tabled its report in Parliament on December 16, directing the ministry to conduct the study “immediately” and apprise the committee within three months.
The ministry has provided the government data culled from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) on the number of people per 1,000 from different religions who have never enrolled in school. Muslims top the list at 134. Christians have the highest enrollment at 39, followed by Sikhs at 48. Eighty-nine of 1,000 Hindus surveyed have never been enrolled in any educational institution.
The Sachar Committee Report calculates that only 17 per cent Muslim children aged 17 and above are matriculates, as against the national average of 26 per cent. Only 50 per cent Muslims who finish middle school complete secondary education, compared to 62 per cent at the national level. The report also notes low levels of education among Muslim women, rural Muslims and those pursuing technical and higher education.