Continuing resources

This paper analyses the participation of the Muslims in the higher education of India to note that their share in higher education - as students, as teachers and as non-teaching staff - is no more than a third of what it should be given their share in the population. The pare seeks to analyses the provisions of National Education Policy 2020 for their implications on the education of the Muslim men and women in the country. The paper underscores that, unlike the previous policies where religious minorities including Muslims were given a separate space and special dispensations for their development participation in education, the NEP 2020 asserts that the derivation, marginalisation and underrepresentation are not exclusive to the minorities and a large section of the society suffer on these counts. The policy has thus bunched minorities and Muslims under a newly coined term called 'Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs) which comprise a large segment of the society and thus expecting minorities to jostle for a share in the same. Such and many other provisions in the policy do not augur well for the community and some are even emotionally hurtful. Most such issues relate to the medium of instruction, madrasahs and school education. This paper focuses on higher education.