Open Forum

New Delhi, 12 April 2010

Reservation For Muslims

HOW ABOUT SUPER 30 MODEL INSTEAD?

By Syed Ali Mujtaba

Should Muslims be given reservation or not is the big question doing the rounds. It seems to have got a fillip from the Women Reservations’ Bill, recently passed by the Rajya Sabha. The Pandora’s box is open and some decisions cannot be kept hanging for too long. However, there is a view among a segment of Indian Muslim that instead of seeking favours from the Government and hankering for reservation for shedding the burden of backwardness, some members of the community should come forward and emulate the Super 30 model of Bihar to uplift their fellow members.

The Sachar Committee report reveals the abysmally low share of Muslims in professional courses, especially in institutes of excellence in the country. In 2006-07, only 3.3 per cent of all students in all IITs and around 1.3 per cent in all IIMs were Muslims. In the Indian Administrative Services, the representation of Muslims was only 3 per cent and a per cent more (four) in the Indian Police Service.

Super 30 is an initiative under which poor students are giving educational coaching free of cost to crack the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE). The coaching institutes’ takes 90 students every year divided into a batch of 30 students each and it has repeatedly demonstrated that how professional coaching can make the under-privileged students crack the entrance test of the top engineering colleges of the country. 

The 30 students are selected from among 3,000-odd aspirants who write the Super 30 entrance test. The entrance test is held in Lucknow, Agra, Gorakhpur and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Ranchi, Bokaro, Dhanbad and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur in Bihar.

Once selected, the students are provided professional coaching, food and lodging facilities, all free of cost. Parents of most of the students come from the bottom rung of the society, some being brick kiln workers, domestic help and doing menial jobs. 

The institute was started in 2003 by two dynamic persons, one a mathematician and other a police officer. In the first year, 18 of its students made it to the prestigious IITs and the number rose to 22 in 2004 and 26 in 2005. In 2007 and 2006, 28 students made it through ITT-JEE.  In the last seven years, 182 students out of 210 have made it to different IITs across the country. And for the last two years, all 30 students of Super 30 have made it to the IITs and this includes students from the Muslim community as well.

A British filmmaker narrated the success story of Super 30 trough the Discovery Channel and also a Japanese documentary film maker made a film on this innovative and successful attempt to send poor children to India’s top most engineering colleges.

The Super-30 success has made the government of Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh to replicate the model in their respective States. A team of government officials of these States are making a beeline to Patina to study this model of teaching and are preparing a blue prints for its implementation in their respective States.

Is the Muslim community in India being aspired by the initiative like Super 30? This is a big question mark as it has been discovered that there are small and big, more than 50 coaching institutes run by the Muslim community in different parts of the country. Many of these insinuations are receiving funds from the Government, and are making tall claims to run the show and receive more funds but contrary to the claims these institutions are no more than government offices, providing employment and money to those who run them.

A close look at the functioning of the Muslim-run coaching institute provides a very unrealistic picture. Most of them have taken umpteen numbers of courses and they could hardly do justice to any of them. There is hardly any desire or inclination to provide a specialized training. No wonder, the bright students of the community keep themselves away from such institutions.

The Super 30 has provided a direction how a success story could be scripted in the most humble way.  Now the onus is on members of the Muslim community to take this idea forward and replicate it for uplifting the not so privileged members of their faith.  This they can do through professional approach and with utmost resolve and commitment and dedication to the cause.

The Rahmani Foundation, in Munger, Bihar leads the way by adopting the Super 30 model for under privileged Muslim students of Bihar to crack IITs exams. The Foundations picked-up poor average Muslim candidates from Bihar and coach them in Patna providing them free coaching, lodging and foods to appear IIT Jee test. It costs Rs. 80,000 per year for each student’s expenses.

An Additional Director-General of Police Abhyanand, coached and helped 30 students from poor families to join the prestigious IITs, He began working for the Foundation after disassociating himself from Super 30.  The idea of coaching the Muslim students struck the cop because Super 30’s successful students too included Muslim students.

The Foundation announced that students who have scored more than 60-plus marks in the 12th examination can appear in the test at selected locations throughout Bihar. About 2,300 candidates appeared in the test and eventually 10 candidates were selected. All the 10 students enrolled in a special coaching institute passed the IIT-JEE exams.

Clearly, the Foundation is a good example to emulate. It is high time that some dynamic persons from the community should come forward and try to start specialized coaching institute in a professional way on the lines of Super 30 and the Rahmani Foundation in other parts of the country. They should hire the best faculty available and Muslim philanthropist should come forward to foot their bills. Similarly, the food and lodging arrangement should be made by members of the community. 

A good administrator can do wonders, in running such institutions and there is no dearth of them in the community who can produce results.  If this is taken forward with a missionary zeal, it won’t be long when Indian Muslims can too write a new script that can become a talking point in every nook and corner of the country.---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)