Noting that 96 per cent Muslim children go to contemporary education institutions for the prime reason of job opportunities, they sought promotion of the educational institutions in the minority-concentrated areas as that will better address the educational progress of the community.
They were reacting to Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla’s remarks in her inaugural address to the Fourth World Education Summit that the prime minister desires students of madrasas to have the holy Koran in one hand and the computer in another.
The inaugural session was dedicated to the theme “Minority education: Let’s walk the talk.” Highlighting difficulties in the Muslim girls’ education, eminent educationist Dr Shabistan Ghaffar said that women, regardless of religion, region or colour are a minority within minority and their empowerment is a great challenge.
Taj Mohammad Khan, chairman of the Federation of Minority Managed Institutions, said that whole focus of the government seems to be on providing funds, teachers, computers, etc to madrasas while contemporary educational institutions of Muslims face a lot of difficulties from government agencies on the matters of affiliation, recognition, etc.
“Focus on Madarsas is not going to solve educational problems of the Muslims, the government must help the community in accessing contemporary educational institutions by providing resources and addressing their problems,” he said and his contention echoed from most of the speakers.
Justice MSA Siddiqui, Chairman of National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI), however, regretted that Muslims were not coming forward to establish contemporary educational institutions. “Muslims, despite being the largest among the religious minority communities, were not taking benefit of the constitutional provisions, while the smaller communities like Christians and Sikhs were deriving more benefits from NCMEI,” he lamented.
