By Mohd. Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net,
Lucknow: The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is treated as an epitome of Muslim awakening but it falters badly when it comes to performance of its students in competitive examinations. In the UPSC-2010 results declared on Wednesday, just one AMU student managed to clear the examination. Amongst 920 successful candidates there are 31 Muslim candidates.
It is not that the AMU lacks on facilities and infrastructures. The Union Ministry of HRD provides crores of rupees as financial aid towards special coaching for the students preparing for UPSC exams. There is a separate residential hostel besides a state of the art coaching centre managed by a senior faculty member. The centre has well equipped library with computer and all possible books and reading material.
Surprisingly all this is available for free for the students who are appearing in UPSC exams. The results, however, tell other story with only Syed Wasif Haider, B.Tech. (2005) as the lone AMU representative in the 2010 Civil Services. Interestingly he was not part of the AMU coaching centre. After graduation in 2005 from AMU, Haider moved to US where he did masters in computer technology and got a job in Silicon Valley, California. While at the job there he prepared for the civil services.
Commenting on the situation, President, AMU Research Scholar’s Association, Mohd Jasim stated that conducive atmosphere is also important while preparing for examination. “The deteriorating atmosphere of the campus is a well known fact. Providing them books will not help if the students are not mentally ready to take the examination. The spark for clearing the coveted UPSC examination is missing from AMU students. They are low at confidence level and also not aware about the academic advances,” he said.
On his part, Prof Ziauddin Khairoowala, In-charge, AMU Residential Coaching Centre, stated that they expect selection from the current batch undergoing the coaching. “They will be taking the examination in 2011 and we hope that good numbers will be selected. Two of our candidates had made it to PCS (J) and nearly 25 others in different examinations. We are trying our best to motivate them and providing with all resources,” he said.