Speaking at the 62nd Meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) here on Thursday, the minister said : “I would urge that the proposed new scheme RUSA should give special attention to the minorities and RUSA may also be brought under the umbrella of 15-Point Programme.”

On the RUSA proposal for upgrading colleges to model colleges, he said: “model degree colleges proposed by the States in Minority Concentration Districts (MCDs) may be given 100% Central assistance by the Ministry of Human Resources Development to give extra push to higher education in MCDs.”

Khan pointed out that his ministry has proposed to expand the basket of the education related schemes of HRD covered under the 15-Point Programme with the concurrence of the Ministry of HRD.

He urged the HRD Ministry to ensure an equitable share for the minority communities while upgrading existing educational facilities or setting up of new facilities. Blocks should be taken as a unit for identifying the minority concentration areas instead of districts as at present.

“Higher Education is an area where the deprivation of the Muslim community is much higher. Gross Attendance Ratio (GAR) of Muslims in higher education is 8.7% as compared to 16.8% of non-Muslims as per the National Sample Survey conducted in 2007-08,” Khan said.

He informed that his ministry has proposed to set up six new universities
“with minority focus” and sought the cooperation of the HRD Ministry.

Article 30 of the Constitution grants the right to education. In this context, Khan said : “It is important to have a legislative framework in place, which would ensure that the provision of Article 30 of our Constitution is implemented smoothly both in letter and spirit.”

The minister called for more Urdu-medium schools and availability of Urdu teachers.

A Standing Committee of National Monitoring Committee for Minority Education (NMCME) under the HRD Ministry has been constituted under the chairmanship of Siraj Hussain to go into the issues related to the schemes of Ministry of HRD for minorities and a monitoring mechanism for minority related schemes.

The Ministry of HRD and its subordinate agencies are collecting much of these valuable data as part of their regular monitoring mechanism. “I would also recommend that religion-wise break up may be collected for all such data wherever feasible,” Khan said.

He further said : “As our Ministries are working together for the same cause of minority education, it is essential that we have a monitoring mechanism which takes care of all these schemes holistically. This would go a long way in ensuring that we achieve our goals with better coordination and mutual benefit. The role of States in implementation and monitoring cannot be overemphasised, as they are an important stakeholder. Therefore, the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Ministry of HRD and the State Governments must work together towards our common goal.”