AIMES Demands For 4% Quota To Muslims In Education and Job Sectors

The All India Muslim Educational Society (AIMES) demanded the government to ensure 4% reservation for Muslims in education and employment. The State and Central governments should create a supervisory mechanism to ensure its proper implementation.

The one-day state educational conference in Hyderabad, organised by the AIMES on Sunday 21st April. Education is a panacea for all ills in society, particularly in minority communities, and needs more focus on it, speakers at the conference said.

Asif Pasha, former minister for minorities welfare and currently president of AIMES, said the government was giving funds and introducing schemes but several Muslims were not aware of them.

Claiming that Muslims were more backward than Scheduled Castes, as stated by the Sachar and Srikrishna committees, he said Muslims should not solely depend on the government but, instead , look for solutions to their problems on their own. ‘'Education and our perception of it should change in tune with the changing times. We must adapt to the changes,'' he said.

Pune-based MCE Society president AP Inamdar said that Muslims should first start believing that they have progressed and achieved something post independence. ‘'Leadership should desist from making depressing speeches and playing on emotions, which is creating inferiority complex among the youth. They should be positive and encourage the youth to be optimistic about future, which will yield good results,'' he said.

The society asked the State and Central governments to issue minority status certificates on permanent basis to minority educational institutions subject to periodic inspection and verification. Presently the certificates are issued after much hassle for a period of one year only.

The conference noted the administrative difficulties being faced in disbursement of scholarships to schools and colleges and reimbursement of fee and urged the government to empower the newly created Minority Commissionerate to ensure effective coordination between itself and the Social Welfare Department.

The conference wanted the government to appoint at least one Urdu knowing officer/translator in each department for proper implementation of Urdu, the second official language. The conference also unanimously resolved to request the government to implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee and Justice Rangnath Misra Commission.

Uttarakhand governor Aziz Qureshi said in his message that the conference was the need of the hour. He stressed the need for educating Muslim girls. He said backwardness in education led to backwardness in economics which, in turn, leads to backwardness on the social front and in education. Educational backwardness is curse in the present-day knowledge-based society, Qureshi said.