More non-minority students in reserved schools, NCPCR suggests bringing minority schools, madrassas under RTE

New Delhi: The National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended to the Union government to bring all minority schools, including madrassas, under the purview of the Right to Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan campaign.

The recommendation comes after the commission conducted a survey and a report was prepared based on it which was released on Tuesday. The report titled "Impact of Exemption under Article 15 (5) with regards to Article 21A of the Constitution of India on Education of Minority Communities'' states that the largest number of out-of-school children – at 1.1 crore – belonged to the Muslim community.

According to the NCPCR survey report, 74 per cent of students in Christian missionary schools belonged to non-minority communities. Overall, 62.50 per cent of students in such schools belonged to non-minority communities.

The report also says that only 8.76 per cent of the students in minority schools belong to socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Since minority schools are outside the purview of the RTE Act, there is no compulsion to admit students from disadvantaged backgrounds," it says.

The Commission also backed reservation for students from minority communities in such schools after the survey found a large proportion of non-minority students studying there.

Giving a religion-wise breakup of the schools, the report says that while Christians comprise 11.54 per cent of India's minority population, they run 71.96 per cent schools, and Muslims with 69.18 per cent minority population run 22.75 per cent of the schools.

Sikhs comprise 9.78 per cent of the minority population and run 1.54 per cent schools; Buddhists with 3.83 per cent minority population run 0.48 per cent schools; and Jains with 1.9 per cent minority population run 1.56 per cent of schools.

According to the NCPCR, the Sachar Committee report, which says 4 per cent of Muslim children (15.3 lakh) attend madrasas, has only taken into account the registered madrasas.

The report also gives examples of disproportionate numbers showing the situation in West Bengal. While 92.47% of the minority population is of Muslims and 2.47% are Christians in West Bengal,there are 114 Christian minority schools and only two schools with Muslim minority status," the report says.

The report also shows that in Uttar Pradesh, though the Christian population is less than 1% there are 197 Christian minority schools in the state.

"This disproportionate number takes away the core objective of establishing minority educational institutions." the report added.

The commission also found that the minority schools are catering to less than 8% of the minority children population despite the large presence of minority students in school-going age groups.

Recommending mapping of all unrecognised institutions to identify out-of-school children, the NCPCR said there are a large number of children attending schools/institutions that are not recognised.

The Commission demanded to have specific guidelines regarding the minimum percentage of students from the minority community to be admitted to minority institutions.