Srinagar: Enrolment of Muslims in higher education in Jammu and Kashmir has fallen to its lowest — at 33 — percent, during the past five years, reveals a report by the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India.
The greatest fall has come to the fore after the ministry recently released its 2020-21 edition of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE). The annually published report has let out the fact that the Muslim student representation has fallen to 32.92 percent, the lowest ever in the past five years.
The enrolment of Muslims had been steadily increasing from 2016-17 and reached an all-time high of 45 percent in 2019-20. However, post-August 2019, the enrollment dropped by nearly 47,300 in 2020- 21.
The other cultural units that constitute 32 percent of the demographic metrics of the former state have shown a strong upward movement and their representation went up to around 67 percent.
The uncomfortable truth opened up by the report is that the learning yearning of Muslims has declined in all the domains of higher education including science, technology, management, medicine, and social sciences.
This scribe during the research on the story could not find any ostensible institutionalized discrimination against Muslims in the pursuit of higher education. Certain reasons were, however, ascribed by the youth in the age group of 18 to 23 to their flattening of attraction for higher education.
“Most of the courses offered are not market-oriented and do not fetch any employment in the private job market. Besides, half of the careers in the public sector have been exclusively reserved for Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, which reduces our chances of employability,” said Junaid Ahmad Sofi, an undergraduate at Amar Singh College.
Afra, a university post-graduate opines that independent enterprises that can generate jobs in Kashmir are too risky. “An uncertain situation spanning over decades has upset the conditions required for creating an economy that can produce jobs.”
Even as the youthful Afra has an optimistic outlook but her wide and dark eyes are clouded with worry.
“Conditions in the Indian mainland too are not favorable for us given a certain kind of atmosphere,” added Walid, her colleague.
Surprisingly, researchers and academicians this newspaper talked to were uninformed about the survey. Mostly, even the retired ones exhibited anxiety in offering any comments on the uncomforting data released by AISHE.
Prof G M Bhat, former head Department of Economics, Central University Kashmir, is of the view that there is no ostensible prejudice in the admission policy for higher education in J&K.
The weakened financial position of the community to sponsor their children for higher education “is not a strong argument”, according to Bhat.
“Females from urban areas”, he said “are more attracted towards higher education as compared to their male counterparts. Boys in urban areas prefer to grab any employment opportunity or carry on with their family trades.”
However, affirmative action, according to the professor, under SC and ST quota is a dynamic that discourages the children of the majority community in aspiring for higher studies.
A young professor from the city’s Sri Pratap College says that higher education is not inspiring and rewarding in face to face with employment.
Boys have a rejection complex that whatever jobs are available with the government they are grabbed by the category candidates. Attention to the practical and immediate bread-and-butter issues after class 12th weighs heavy on their minds, the professor said wishing secrecy of his identity.
Prof A G Madhosh, a former head of the Department of Education, University of Kashmir, says that the perspective of looking at life by Muslim youth has changed. The economic system and knowledge has taken a shift.
Courses and methods of education, according to the expert, “are “fossilised and unattractive; they need to be revisited, revised according to the changing times and made organic.”
There is a tremendous flow of information, awareness, and consciousness coming from the real world while higher learning institutions are detached from the ground realities. The targets have changed.
There is stress free-ness to some extent in the children now. Parents’ requirement for higher education for children has become a choice for children nowadays. The younger generation now wants to find life in their jobs. This is a sign of stability for the individual and society.
