Drawing the government’s attention to the increasing educational needs of minorities, in view of their educational backwardness, Dr Javed demanded the government to sufficiently increase their budgetary allocation.
TCN News
NEW DELHI — Speaking at the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) Education Board’s virtual conference, experts, academicians and educationists have urged the Union Government to increase the allocation for minorities, catering for their educational needs in the upcoming budget.
As the countdown for the next Union Budget has begun, the JIH Markazi Taleemi Board (Education Board) organised an online conference on the ‘Upcoming budget-2022-23: Education and Minority concerns’. Experts, economists, academicians, educationists, journalists and intellectuals from different states have participated in the meeting.
Speaking on the occasion, economist Dr Javed Alam stated that minorities play a vital role in any democratic country. “Therefore, it is crucial to always keep in mind their sustainable development while making a project or plan, particularly their education budget.”
Drawing the government’s attention to the increasing educational needs of minorities, in view of their educational backwardness, Dr Javed demanded the government to sufficiently increase their budgetary allocation. Because, he added, a huge amount is required to get primary to higher education, for which financial assistance is essential particularly for the backward and underprivileged section.
Dr Javed asked that the government announced various educational schemes and policies, but how many of them were properly implemented? He pointed out that they were not properly monitored nor even it was disclosed how many students belonging to minorities benefited from these schemes. “Even, the government cut the education spending for minorities in last year’s budget. The allocations for the minorities have been slashed from Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 4,800 crore. Whereas, at present at least Rs. 10, 000 crores are required to cater for their education needs,” he added.
Addressing the conference, the Director of the JIH Education board, Syed Tanveer Ahmed has asserted that it is our responsibility to remind the union government ahead of the budget what should be minorities’ allocation in the budget and how much should be allocated for their education. Urging all organisations, intellectuals and experts to come forward for it, he said, the purpose of the conference is to convey minorities’ concerns so that the government should make comprehensive and effective policies and schemes to eradicate their educational backwardness and students can get the maximum benefit from them.
Tanveer informed that a team of the JIH Education Board is studying the possible best ways and means to facilitate minorities’ needs including their education empowerment and whatever suggestions come up that will be presented to the government ahead of budget.
Urging the government to achieve the goal of public spending of 6 per cent of GDP on education in the next budget, Tanveer called on the government to improve the quality of spending and decentralise the process of budgeting. He has made various demands including increasing the fund of ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’, raising the number of scholarships and fellowships for all backward classes as well as escalating the central government’s share of spending on the education sector in the upcoming budget.