Brainstorming session held in Delhi by Community Leaders to discuss status of Higher Education in underprivileged Communities

“The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE 20-21) paints a bleak picture regarding Higher Education in the Muslim community. Only 4.6% students are enrolled inspite of being 15% of total population.” Prof. Furqan Qamar, Professor of Management, Jamia Millia Islamia

Association of Muslim Professionals ( AMP) in association with All India Educational Movement (AIEM), organised a meeting of Professionals, Senior Academicians, Social Leaders, Policy Makers etc., on Thursday, 22nd June, 2023 at Tasmia Hall, Jamia Nagar, Okhla, New Delhi. This was held primarily to discuss current status of Higher Education in the Community, reasons for the same and the way forward.

As per the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE: 2020-21) conducted by the Ministry of Education, the number of Muslim students in Higher Education from the community has decreased to 19.21 lakh (4.6 per cent) in 2020-21 from 21 lakh (5.5 per cent) in 2019-20. The Muslim community is lagging behind all other communities, including the OBCs, Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes, in aspects of Higher Education.

This being an alarming situation, the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) which has primarily been working in the domains of Education & Empowerment has decided to conduct a series of Brainstorming sessions to discuss the challenges and the way forward for increasing the enrolments in Higher Education within the Community.

The first of these sessions were held in Delhi where social leaders were present for the brainstorming session and to discuss the different avenues of Collaboration to empower the Community in Higher Education.

Prof. Furqan Qamar, Professor of Management, Jamia Millia Islamia and the keynote speaker, said “Between 19-20 and 20-21, there has been a marked decrease of almost 1.79 lakhs students from Muslim Community in Higher Education. If the statistics are correct then it is quite disturbing and needs some intervention. The feeder pipeline of students who pass from Schools and get into Higher education is also drying up due to the various lack of facilities and resources. These need to be looked into if we need to increase the Community’s percentage in Higher Education.”

Aamir Edresy, President of Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) and a guest speaker, said that the Community needs to make this as an agenda of discussion and work towards finding solution to increase the Higher Education participation. Intellectuals, Educationists & Social Leaders have to put in collective efforts to increase the Community ratio in Higher Education. Towards this end AMP will be organising these kind of meetings & bainstorming sessions all over the Country in the coming days. He said the solutions reached in these discussion will be shared with all the Community organisations for implementation.

Prof. Khwaja Shahid, President, All India Educational Movement (AIEM) and another guest speaker, had welcomed the participants and set the agenda of the day by quoting the figures of All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE: 2020-21), on the decrease in the enrolments for Higher Education in the Muslim Community.

Dr. Syed Farooq, Chairman, Tasmia All India Educational & Social Welfare Society and the presiding speaker summarised the entire discussion and exhorted each one of the responsible community members to come together on one platform and work on this important agenda if we have to see ourselves progressing and running shoulders with the other Communities.

Farook Siddiqui, Program Convener & Head, AMP-NGO Connect said “The Government has discontinued many minority scholarships including the Maulana Azad Scholarship which seems to have affected the Higher Education enrolments. The Government should come out with statistics on how the discontinuation of scholarships have affected the Community.”

Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) has been working for almost a decade and a half in the twin areas of Education and Employment Assistance. From a humble beginning in 2007, AMP has grown exponentially, and is present today in more than 200 Cities of India and as many as 20 Countries globally.

All India Educational Movement (AIEM) is a forward step of UP Rabita Committee, under the chairmanship of eminent education activist Janab Saiyed Hamid, IAS, former VC of AMU and Chancellor of Jamia Hamdard. Prof. (Dr.) Khwaja Shahid also a former IAS officer is its current President.