Muslims in higher education

Samia Deeba, a biotechnology graduate from the Institute of Foreign Trade and Management (IFTM), Moradabad, has much going for her. Many others of her ilk also have reason to look ahead with confidence, armed as they are with a formal higher education certificate.

Samia was one of the four Muslim girls in a batch of 30 students in 2009. “In all, 12 of the students in my batch were Muslims,” she says. “By the time I reached my final year at IFTM, the number of Muslims studying in the institute
had risen even further.”

Samia, who is now pursuing a post-graduate degree from Jamia Millia Islamia, adds, “It is quite apparent that more and more Muslim students are going in for higher education these days.”

“There is no doubt at all about that,” says Habib, a physical education teacher in Hyderabad’s Anwarul Uloom College, affiliated to Osmania University. “Three years back, we had only 60 Muslim students in our college. Today, the strength is a healthy 300.”

Educational mainstreaming of Muslims in India is obviously still only a work-in-progress, but the trend is gaining ground in different parts of India. The factors at work vary from growing awareness among the Muslim youth to government initiatives to sheer economic compulsion. The entry of MNCs and the steady opening up of private sector job opportunities have enthused Muslims to pursue higher studies in order to take advantage of India’s economic growth.       

Dr Sheikh Showket Hussain, a senior Kashmir University professor, puts the changing scenario in perspective, “In the aftermath of the Partition, the Muslim youth of India faced a hopeless situation.  Jobs were scarce for even those who had the requisite educational qualifications. So their ratio in the white-collar workforce declined sharply.”

Things began to look up, says Dr Hussain, when the Middle East job market began to provide an alternative to the younger generation of the minority community. “Indian Muslim youth sought to acquire degrees with an eye on a shot at these jobs but found that the educational avenues available here did not quite match their needs. To this day, the IITs and IIMs have very few Muslim students.” 

Nafees Jahan Ansari, a retired principal, echoes the same concern. “Private institutes have certainly played a major role in the overall increase of Muslim students in higher education. But where merit counts, like in Delhi University, the number is actually dwindling,” she laments.

She argues that Muslim students are compelled to opt for the School of Open Learning because they are unable to get into a good DU college. “So when we talk about an increase in the number Muslim students in higher education, it is important to ascertain whether it is happening across the board,” he adds.

But for Prof. Rafiuddin Nasir, who teaches botany at Maulana Azad College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, much has changed for the better. “Fuelled by easy accessibility of quality institutes and career options, Muslims of this country are definitely marching ahead in the sphere of higher education,” he asserts.

“Muslim students are joining every field of higher education, be it medical, engineering or management,” adds Prof. Nasir. “It isn’t just quantity anymore. The quality of Muslim students is also very good.”

Dr Mohd Maroof Khan, principal of Dr Zakir Husain Memorial School, Delhi, traces the transformation back to the 1970s and 1980s “when Muslim parents began sending their daughters to school and college”. He says, “The girls who went to school at that time are today mothers of those who are now pursuing higher education. This is a vindication of the age-old truism that if the male child receives education, only a single individual is educated; but if a girl child gets education, many generations follow suit.”

Government initiative has also played a key role. The 2009 decision to bring Madrasa students at par with CBSE passouts has paved the way for Madrasa youth to stretch their ambitions beyond the boundaries of Islamic institutions. Since then, lakhs of Madrasa students have enrolled themselves for mainstream higher education aspiring to partake in the India growth story. Says Dr Khan, “With the rise of the private sector, small-scale industries went into sharp decline. Muslims were the biggest sufferers as they were either running these units or working in them. This forced them to look for viable alternatives to their family trades. Many opted for higher education.”

Syed Uzair, who did his MBA from Integral University, Lucknow, in 2011, believes that today large swathes of the minority community are financially much better off than they have ever before. “Relative prosperity has pushed up the number of Muslims seeking higher education,” he says.   

Faisal Bin Osman, B. Com final year student of Osmania University, emphasises the role of scholarships in facilitating this palpable upswing. “In Andhra Pradesh, Muslim students get good scholarships and education for them is as good as free. They are now able to pursue higher studies with greater ease because it no longer puts any financial pressure on their families,” he explains.

Zubair, an advocate in Kashmir, agrees. He says that higher education intake capacity in Kashmir has increased manifold in the past few years. “IGNOU has played a pivotal role. The flexibility it allows has made it popular among students.” He however strikes a note of caution: “The increase in number of students has led to a decline in the quality of education. Very few research projects are undertaken in our universities.”

True, ‘the more the merrier’ principle might not always work in higher education. Hyderabad-based physical education instructor Habib reveals that “in Andhra Pradesh the number of higher education institutes has increased to such an extent in recent times that last year 60,000 engineering seats remained vacant.”

However, Muslim students aspiring for a better life certainly aren’t complaining at this juncture. The proliferation of educational institutes around the country has helped them tap opportunities that only a lucky few among them had access to in  the past decades.
   
With Shadab Bashir in Srinagar