Number of Muslims in higher education remains low

While the 'Prime Minister's New 15 Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities', with special focus on promoting education among minorities has helped increase overall literacy rate of Muslims to around 60 per cent, there is no headway in increasing their numbers in higher education.

As per an all-India survey on higher education, there were just 5 per cent Muslim students studying in various universities in 2017-18.

The silver lining is that in 2016-17, the proportion was 4.9 per cent, the enrolment having increased by 0.1 per cent.

Among university teachers, there were just 4.9 per cent Muslims. In northern India, the average enrolment of Muslims in non-minority universities is around 1-3 per cent.

The numbers are quite high in Jamia Millia Islamia at 50 per cent and 75 per cent in Aligarh Muslim University. The Centre for Educational Research & Training (CERT), that studied 34 universities, found just 63,325 Muslim students pursuing their education out of the total 9,15,806 students, showing an alarming dropout rates among Muslims.

But in some institutions such as Maulana Azad National Urdu University (Telangana) and Central University Of Kashmir (J&K) the ratio was above 90 per cent.