Indian Journal of Dalit and Tribal Studies and Action, Vol.3, Issue 1, No.4 pp.53 to 79, April, 2018

Md Musharuddin Sk

Abstract

The Muslim community is socio-economically and educationally backward in India (Sachar 2006, PSEC 2014). The low educational level of Muslims is well acknowledged in recent discourses on educational attainment in India although interstate variations are found. West Bengal has the second highest Muslim population in the country and about eighty per cent of them live in rural areas. The majority of them are steeped in poverty. This study attempts to study educational mobility among Muslims across various age groups in the state vis-à-vis other socio-religious communities especially other backward communities. It is evident from the study that differentials in educational attainment have widened between Hindus and Muslims and Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Muslims in Bengal among the younger generations at various educational levels. Enrolment has improved but dropout deteriorates the situation. This study tries to investigate the causes of the dropout rates and the completion rates from the primary to higher education of the Muslims of various age-groups. The study also engages with gender issues of the community in educational mobility. Data from villages shows that young Muslim females are going through a ‘revolutionary change’ in educational achievement breaking the age-old barriers. Dropouts among Muslim males at the post-elementary education are a major issue.

Introduction

Education is one of the determining factors in the development process and it has intrinsic value to make a competent citizen in modern society. Educational attainment among various communities varies with spatio-temporal dimensions. Various reports like Sachar Committee Report (2006), Post Sachar Evaluation Committee(PSEC) Report (also known as Kundu Committee Report), 2014, the various round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, National Sample Survey (NSS) data has shown such educational differences at the inter-community level. After Sachar Committee Report (2006), a fresh debate has been commenced, which added the education of Muslims in the development discourse.

Although there have been some improvements in recent times, Muslims are still in the worst condition as noted in the 2014 PSEC report that “progress in terms of basic education at the all-India level has been slowest among Muslims between 2004– 05 and 2011–12…while Scheduled Tribes (STs) outperformed Muslims in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Muslim performance in West Bengal was the worst during this period, coinciding with the Left rule in the state”. From the point of empowerment of the Muslims, West Bengal is at the bottom of the list of states (Sattar 2012: 237). The community is steeped into poverty, with low educational level depending largely on self-employment having low-income activities (Fazal and Kumar 2013). Feelings of discrimination are evident which may have an impact on the educational mobility of Muslims. ‘Less ambitious attitude’ of Muslim parents about educating their Children or unequal opportunity (quality and quantity of school or in the labour market) (Bhalotra et al. 2010), socio-economic, historical and other factors have contributed to unequal educational achievements of Muslims in comparison to Hindus and other backward communities especially Scheduled Castes (SCs). Educational infrastructural deficit in Muslim concentrated Districts and Blocks in the state has been noticed in the District Information System for Education (DISE) data over various years in the state.

Muslim females who were born at the end of the nineteen eighties and the very beginning of the nineties are the first generation outperforming the male counterparts especially school educational attainment and this represents the landmark in educational mobility of various generations in West Bengal.

Literature review

Ogbu’s “Cultural-Ecological Theory of Minority School Performance” considers the broad societal role and school factors and the dynamics within the community (racial minority in the theory) itself for education of minority. Here the system and the community are two major factors. He proposes that minorities are “treated or mistreated in education in terms of educational policies, pedagogy, and returns for their investment or school credentials”. There are certain barriers, which include “instrumental discrimination (e.g., in employment and wages), relational discrimination (such as social and residential segregation), and symbolic discrimination (e.g., denigration of the minority culture and language)”. Ogbu et. al. (1998) termed all these discriminations “collective problems” faced by minorities.

Another view by Jain (2012: 22) claims the roots of educational backwardness generally associated with the minority is not so much a result of poverty and lack of infrastructural support as that of wider societal forces obstructing the processes that facilitate utilization of the government/public resources by the community. Bourdieu (1976:110) has linked educational achievement and educational mobility with social class where ‘cultural privilege’ or ‘cultural capital’ is responsible for “initial inequality of children when faced with examinations and tests, and hence of unequal achievement”.

Social classes among minority and dominant groups are not similar in nature in the development processes. The minorities have less access to the number and variety of jobs and training associated with class differentiation and mobility (Ogbu 1982:272). When discrimination is strong, wealthier families among the minority groups suffer from low educational attainment (Desai et.al 2010:285). To dispel the group inequalities “a social exclusion perspective helps to highlight a particular set of challenges for those concerned with making policy.” (Kabeer 2000:93)

Educational mobility

Nakanishi (1997: 610) in a book review narrated the academic achievement of fifty doctoral degree holding professionals who belonged to poverty ridden families in America where parents ‘fight to get their children into the most advantageous academic and social environments available’ and older siblings’ acting as role models for younger sisters and brothers have been projected. Bauer and Riphahn (2007) in their study on natives and second-generation immigrants in Switzerland concluded that the education costs and family sizes generally affect educational achievement and intergenerational education transmission, but even in situations of low costs and few siblings, the impact of parental education is still significant. Belzil and Hansen (2003:680) provided in a study that as a whole, variables in family background constitute eighty five percent in school enrolment of children. Breen and Jonsson (2007) in the perspective of Sweden reported the role of social class as a less determining factor in educational attainment in youths as compared to older generations because of educational policies, which promoted the social upward mobility. Lillard and Willis (1994) in Malaysia’s perspective concluded that race based policies have impacted differential educational attainment among Malays and non-Malays (Chinese and Indians etc.) which resulted in the reduction or even reversed the traditional pattern of higher levels of educational attainment among non-Malays. Majumder (2013) in her study in intergenerational mobility in education has noted that substantial upward mobility has taken place across generations in educational attainments but the social disparity in mobility levels is quite significant for excluded groups (SCs/STs) as compare to advanced castes between 1993 and 2004 in India. In West Bengal four in every five Muslims live in rural areas. No such work on educational mobility has been done on rural Bengali Muslims of West Bengal.

This paper attempts to find out (i) Educational attainment of Muslims vis-à-vis other socio-religious groups especially backward communities (SC) of rural West Bengal across various generations and availability of educational infrastructure in Muslims concentrated areas (ii) Completion rate and drop-out rate of Muslims from educational institutes and reasons thereof; and educational mobility among Muslims having focus on gender in the selected villages in the districts of Murshidabad, West Bengal.

Data and Methods

The data needed for the study has been collected from both the primary and secondary sources accomplish the objectives. The Census 2011 data has been utilized for state level data on educational mobility. Data from Association Social Network for Assistance to People (SNAP) Report (2016) based on DISE and Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) 2011–12 and other secondary sources for education has also been utilized. The highest Muslim concentration is in the Murshidabad District of West Bengal in India. An intensive household survey of two villages was carried out during September–November 2016 in the district to understand the educational attainments, causes of dropouts and educational mobility. Sizes of households of two selected villages are of medium size (about 200–300 households). Households have been selected from both the villages on the bases of Proportion to Household Size (PHS) and systematic sampling. Bivariate analysis has been applied as statistical tool using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The two villages selected for the study have a differing share of Muslim population. In one village named Ganeshnagar, Muslims are in the majority (more than 60% of the total population) while in another village Mahula-Daherdhar, Muslims are in the minority (less than 40% of the total population). Village Mahula-Daherdhar was purposively selected from Beldanga-I Block and another village was selected from a block on the basis of the highest female literacy rates among Muslims i.e. Hariharpara block of Murshidabad district. In the block of Hariharpara, a number of villages have been visited to fit the majority-minority Muslim population criteria. Then Ganeshnagar village was selected for the primary survey. Both the villages were away from the urban area (Berhampore) having the same distance of about 15 kilometers.

Besides the household surveys, Focused Group Discussions were conducted among school going students, college going students and 30–35 year olds and 60+ years age groups covering males and females in each village. Apart from these, to understand the situation, in-depth interviews in each village were conducted with the key informants: primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, religious leader, community leader and School Inspectors. Open-ended interview schedules for in-depth interviews were designed for each of the target groups.

For state level data, primary education covers up to class V according to census 2011, Middle level = eight standard, Secondary = 10^th, and higher secondary = 12^th. For primary survey, primary education means upto class IV because most of primary schools provide education upto class IV in selected villages. For the state level data of census 2011, among the Hindu population, Hindu SC and Hindu ST population was also included because religion wise SC/ST population for education level was not available. (In West Bengal, SCs constitute 23.4% and STs 5.78 % of total population; and 99.96% SCs and 73.9% STs in West Bengal are Hindus).

I

Educational Attainment of Muslims and Availability of the Educational Infrastructure in Rural West Bengal

Literacy rate is considered to be one of the prime indicators in the development index. But the literacy rate reflects nothing but triple Rs’- read, write and arithmetic in the Indian context, which is misleading to a large extent. That is why the literacy rate cannot be considered as an important parameter to measure educational achievement of any community. To investigate the real situation of educational attainment, it must cover primary to higher education.

Most Muslims are found to have only primary education, as they don’t go for secondary and higher levels of education (See table 1.) Their concentration is one-third at the secondary level as compared to middle level, which shows lower retention. At the secondary and higher secondary levels, Hindus share the double percentage points compared to Muslims. This is also the same for rural Muslims of the state.

In rural West Bengal, Muslims in higher education are lower as compared to the state’s average. But an inter-community difference is recorded lower in rural Bengal as compared to urbanites. SCs have the marginally better educational attainment than Muslims. (See table 1).

Table 1: Educational attainment (%) of Muslims (7+ years of age) in rural West Bengal by Socio -religious category, 2011.

	Muslim	Hindu	Other religion	SC	ST	All
Illiterate	32.6	25.5	33.7	32.5	43.3	27.9
Literate but Not Educated	2.1	2.2	2.1	2.3	2.1	2.2
Below primary	24.5	21.0	19.8	22.7	21.6	22.0
Primary	19.9	19.5	17.7	19.3	15.8	19.5
Middle	11.9	16.4	15.1	13.4	10.5	15.0
Secondary	3.6	5.8	4.8	4.0	2.9	5.1
Higher secondary / Intermediate	3.6	6.1	4.5	3.8	2.5	5.3
Graduate & above	1.3	3.2	1.9	1.7	0.8	2.6

Source: Census of India, 2011

Primary Education

At the primary level, Muslims have a higher attainment than Hindus in both the rural and urban categories. The percentage share of Muslims at the primary level still is lower than their Hindu counterparts for the under 14-year age group. Muslims in the 15–34 age groups have a higher attainment (18–24%) than their Hindu (16.7­–18.8%) counterparts because the major population of the former did not go for the next level of education. At the primary level, the age group between 12­–29 years, Muslims in both the rural and urban areas stand on the same line (Census 2011).

In recent times, all the Hindu, Muslim and SC/STs have made remarkable growth in educational attainment and inter community differences are less at the primary level. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (2001) has contributed a lot to this achievement. Within the Muslim community, female students outnumber male counterparts at 14 years age group in primary education. For the older age group, Muslim male-female differences are lower as compared other socio-religious groups.

Secondary Education

Class ten pass outs are eligible for different government jobs such as police constables, soldiers in the Indian Army, BSF, and CRPF etc. and up to a few years ago secondary education was a requirement for primary school teachers in the state. So reaching up to the secondary level of education and completing this level is very important as it determines the presence of the community in government or private jobs. At the secondary level, the percentage of Muslim population has always been lower than Hindu counterparts across all the age groups.

SC population of below 20 years age performed better than Muslims by about 2.5 percentage points at the secondary level in the state. The growth in secondary education is slowest among Muslims as compared to SCs and Hindus. While comparing the 60+ years’ age group with the 15–17 year olds population the difference between Hindu-Muslim at the secondary level has increased from 1.1 to 9.4 percentage points. (See table 2)

When focusing on the temporal dimension, a revolutionary change has been taking place for Muslim females. Muslim females form a higher matric/secondary pass population share more than their male counterparts belonging to the below twenty years age group and it is to be mentioned that among the elder age-groups, females were always lower than males for the same.

Higher Secondary Education

Muslims at all ages always record a lower share at higher secondary levels, as compared to the state’s average and Hindu counterparts. At the higher secondary level, Muslims whether they are urbanite or rural record lower percentage share of the population, less than the state’s average across different age groups.

At this educational level, 3.6% Muslims are recorded in rural west Bengal. But 1.7% Muslims (Hindu 3.3%) of the 60+ age group and 12.3% Muslims (Hindu 19%) of the18–19 years age group completed higher secondary. The Census 2011 shows that at the higher secondary level, the male-female difference is higher among Hindus (rural–male 7.4%, female 4.7%) than Muslims (male 4.2% female 3.0).

Table 2: Educational attainment (%) of socio-religious groups to the respective population by educational level and age-groups in rural West Bengal, 2011.

Source: Census of India, 2011.

In rural areas, the gap in the younger generation between Hindus and Muslims has widened faster than the other age groups. The percentage of the Muslims of age groups above 34 years are marginally higher than SCs at the higher secondary level (See table 2). SCs have improved at a faster rate than Muslims under the 25 years age group indicating the higher dropout of the younger Muslim population as compared to SCs or higher completion rates for SCs in the higher secondary levels.

Muslim males have a higher 12^th pass out population than their female counterparts. But it is the reverse right now among the under 25 year’s age groups (2011). In rural West Bengal, Class 12^th pass out Muslim females share (12.9%), which is marginally higher than their male (11.6%) counterparts at the 18­–19 years age group and more or less equal at the under 25 years population (Census 2011).

Graduation and Above Educational Level

One could reiterate that the higher the level of education, greater is the differences between Muslims and Hindus. At the graduation and levels above, the population aged between 25–29 years marks the highest educational attainments of the respective socio-religious groups. The percentage share of Muslim graduates increased from 1.4% for the 60 years and above population to 3.9% for the 25–29 aged population in the state (Census 2011).

In rural West Bengal, 1% of Muslims are graduates in the 60 years and above age bracket and lagged behind the Hindus by 1.3 percentage points but this difference is more than 3 percentage points among the young population showing the widening difference (See table 2). Urban Muslims (6.8%) have more graduates than rural Muslims (3%) for the 25–29 years age groups.

The graduate population of SCs (1.7%) is marginally higher than Muslims (1.3%) (See table 2). But it needs to be mentioned that the share of SCs in Graduate levels is lower than Muslims at the 60 years plus population. SCs have started improving, doing better than Muslims since decades of 1960s and 70s explicitly. It seems that affirmative action of the government got reflected in the marginally better educational mobility of SCs as compared to Muslims.

In rural West Bengal, the 7 + years Muslim population share about 30% of the state’s total. Except at the primary level, they are underrepresented at every level in comparison to the total population. At the graduation level, their statistics is half of that of the total population in the state (See figure 1). SCs are also underrepresented after the primary level but marginally better than Muslims. STs are underrepresented at every level of education.

Figure 1: Share (%) of socio-religious groups (7+years) to the state’s total of respective educational level in rural West Bengal, 2011.

Source: Census of India, 2011

Distribution of Educational Infrastructure in Muslim Concentrated Areas

Various factors like social-economic, political, historical and other factors have contributed to the unequal educational achievements of Muslims in comparison to Hindus and other backward communities, especially SCs. Infrastructural deficiencies are also well acknowledged in Muslim dominant areas in West Bengal. Husain and Chatterjee (2009) noticed ‘gap between demand for educational facilities and infrastructure available is greater in Muslim concentrated districts’ on the basis of DISE data 2005–06 for the geographical distribution of primary schools. Now it would focus on the distribution of educational infrastructure in Muslim concentrated Districts and Blocks in the state in recent times.

Table 3: Distribution of schools (Govt. management) in segregated Blocks of West Bengal, 2011-12.

Share (%) of Muslim Population at segregated Blocks of West Bengal		Primary school/Ten thousand population		Secondary and HS schools/ lakh population
up to 15		7.7		10.7
16-25		6.3		10.2
26-40		5.9		9.4
41-50		5.6		9.2
Above 50		4.6		6.7
WB		9.5		9.3

Source: Association Social Network for Assistance to People (SNAP) Report (2016) based on DISE and Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) 2011–12.

Table 4: Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) at schools (Govt. management) in segregated Blocks of West Bengal, 2011–12.

Muslim population (%) at segregated Blocks of West Bengal		PTR at Primary schools		PTR at Secondary and HS schools
up to 15		22.7		24.9
16-25		24.7		27.6
26-40		26.7		27.1
41-50		30.7		26.9
Above 50		36.8		36
WB		27		27.9

Source: SNAP Report (2016) based on DISE and SEMIS 2011–12.

Lack of educational institutes in the vicinity of Muslims habitats is a major concern. The higher the concentration of Muslim population, the lower is the number of schools (see Table 3) is a clear evidence of the infrastructural deficit in Muslim concentrated areas in West Bengal at the local to the district levels.

Similarly, Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) is another indicator of better functioning of educational institutes in terms of the teaching-learning process. The DISE and SEMIS 2011–12 records that blocks having more than 50% of Muslim population show the highest PTR, which indicates that the highest number of students are taught by the lowest number of teachers and the state’s average is lower by 10 percentage points as compared to these blocks (See table 4). The situation is worse in Madrasah board run schools as their PTR (52.7) is about double of state’s average (SNAP, 2016).

At the higher education level too, Muslim-concentrated districts are well matched with higher college-population ratio than the state average. Uttar Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad districts are names to be mentioned (Census, 2011). Murshidabad is one of the largest districts in the state having more than 7 million population (of which about 5 million are Muslims) has no university which has been a long awaited demand of people of Murshidabad.

II

The Educational scenario in the villages of Murshidabad District, West Bengal

The proportion of educational attainment of Muslims from primary to middle is one third and is about half from the middle to higher secondary. Muslim females perform better than males up to secondary education. But at the higher secondary level, males’ educational attainment is double than females’ due to girls’ marriage led dropout. At the graduation and above levels, Muslim males and females stand almost equally.

Age specific educational achievements narrate the educational mobility. 25–29 years age group is well marked for being the turning point for change in educational attainment among Muslims. This coincides with the fact that in the under thirty-age groups’ Muslim females perform better than males at the selected villages of Murshidabad district.

In spite of being at the same point for the age groups of 12–14 years at the primary level, Muslim females did better than their male counterparts but have variations at other age groups. Only 7% Muslims has attained secondary education and 4.3 % Muslims has passed the higher secondary examination in the villages of Murshidabad. Muslim females, at the higher secondary level, are always lower than males because at this age, girls generally get married and drop out from the education system. For the 30 years and above age group, the percentage of Muslim females having passed higher secondary is either zero or close to one, but Males are not zero at this level for any age group (See Table 5).

Table 5: Educational attainment (%) of Muslim males-females by age groups in select villages of Murshidabad district, West Bengal 2016.

Age	Sex	Primary	Middle	Secondary	Higher Secondary	Graduation& Above
9-11.	Male	67.3
	Female	75
	All	70.6
12-14.	Male	82.1	3.6
	Female	80	16
	All	81.1	9.9
15-17	Male	37	37	11.1	1.9
	Female	20	70	10	–
	All	28.1	54	10.5	0.9
18-19	Male	32.6	30	10.9	10.9
	Female	16.7	41	31	7.1
	All	25	35	20.5	9.1
20-24	Male	28.9	10	10	18.9	–
	Female	45.3	11	25	7.8	4.7
	All	35.7	10	16.2	14.3	1.9
25-29	Male	27.6	11	7.9	9.2	3.9
	Female	44.8	12	6.9	6.9	1.7
	All	35.1	11	7.5	8.2	3
30-34	Male	33.3	5.1	10.3	10.3	7.7
	Female	29.2	6.3	8.3	–	2.1
	All	31	5.7	9.2	4.6	4.6
35-59	Male	22	3.8	4.8	1.6	1.1
	Female	23.8	1.4	2.1	1.4	0.7
	All	22.8	2.7	3.6	1.5	0.9
60+	Male	3	3	–	3	3
	Female	7.1	–	–	–	–
	All	4.9	1.6	–	1.6	1.6
All Age	Male	32.9	9.6	5.9	5.8	1.4
	Female	35.1	16	8.3	2.5	1.1
	All	33.9	12	7	4.3	1.2

Source: Primary Survey (September- November 2016).

In higher education, the presence of Muslims depicts the gloomy picture of the community. Primary survey (2016) shows that only 1% Muslims are graduates (which is lower than the census of 2011) in selected villages which are in close proximity to urban areas, which again proves that Muslims of Murshidabad are lagging behind. No such astonishing gap of male-female differences is noticed here. The presence of Muslims in higher education has declined from the 30–34 years age group to 20–24 years age group consistently as it is similarly noticed in the 35–59 years age group as compared to the 60 + age group. Female graduates (4.7%) outnumber their male counterparts at the 20–24 years age group where the boys are figured at zero. Muslim females of the younger generation have performed better than their male counterparts in higher education as well in select villages.

Enrolment at villages

The investigation of the dynamics of the currently enrolled students is inevitable to analyse the present scenario. There are 365 students enrolled from the primary to higher education in the villages in 2015-16 academic year. The highest enrolment is at the middle level (38%), followed by the primary (25%) and the secondary (20%) and higher education (graduation and above) shares only 5%. At the elementary education level, male and female students stand at the same line. But at the secondary level, more than 70%-enrolled students are girls and at the higher secondary level they share 54% as well.

Primary survey records that about seven in every hundred students have not attended educational institutes for a duration between one month and less than one year but they are enrolled. The educational level of the head of the households of these extremely irregular students (total number is 26) is very low. More than 85% of their guardians are illiterate at both the villages and the rest of them did cross primary education. Monthly per capita income of these irregular students’ homes is another issue of concern. 35% irregular students come under the below ₹1000 monthly per capita income (PCI) and 50% irregular students come under the less than ₹1500 monthly PCI. Overall, 15% students (total irregular 55 out of 365) are irregular because they go to educational institutes a couple of days in a month and they roam free rest of the days. Two thirds of the heads of households of these irregular students were never enrolled at schools. And about one in every four has primary level of education for the same. The higher the PCI, the lower is the irregularity of school attendance, is evident from these villages.

Age-specific Attendance Ratio (AAR)

Age-specific Attendance Ratio (AAR) is more acceptable as it presents age-specific trends. (Age-specific Attendance Ratio (AAR) = Number of persons at a particular age group currently attending educational institutes (*100 is the total population at that particular age group). Comparison between the NSS data (2014) and the primary data (2016) shows that Muslims have shown better AAR up to the age of 17 years that indicates students enrolled up to secondary in selected villages (see Table 6). But in the age group 18–23 years, AAR of Muslim Males at the villages of Murshidabad (2016) was about half of the national average in the year 2014 and lagged behind by about 8 percentage points. Muslim females are lagged by the national average and state average by 6.5 percentage point in the 18–23 years age group. The 24–29 age group (see table 6) records that AAR of Muslim males (2016) are lower than the 2014’s state’s and national’s rural average and Muslim females are fixed at zero.

Table 6: Age-specific Attendance Ratio AAR (%)

Age-groups (Years)	Muslim in Villages 2016*		Rural Bengal 2014#		Rural India 2014#
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
6-13	91.9	99.0	92.0	93.0	90.0	88.0
14-17	67.6	88.9	62.0	80.0	75.0	72.0
18-23	18.5	18.5	26.0	24.0	32.0	24.0
24-29	2.3	0.0	3.0	1.0	4.0	2.0

Source: *Primary Survey (September- November, 2016), # 71^st Round National Sample Survey, June 2014.

Previous discourse on the dynamics of educational attainment of Muslims depicted that ‘cultural ethos’ is responsible for their educational backwardness of Muslim females because they are not allowed to go outside for study or work. But time has changed. A recent study on the Muslims of Maharashtra by Shaban (2016) reveals that ‘a revolution is underway in the Muslim community with regard to girls’ education’. It has also been noticed in rural Murshidabad.

The higher shares of females are the outcome of high female retention and high male dropout in post elementary levels in the selected villages. Dropout of Muslim males from educational institutes is mainly due to the out-migration of students to the construction sector.

Completion Rate and Educational Mobility

The old generations who enrolled, and once in the educational system tried their best to complete the level as compared to the successors (See Table 7). [Completion rate = (Total students who completed particular level of education *100)/ total students enrolled at the primary education].

At the primary level, for above forty years age group, the completion rate figures between 50–56% and it is 70% –75% for the age groups of 20–39 years. Females’ completion rate is lower than male counterparts for 30–59 years age group and it is higher for the younger age in below-thirty years and sixty years plus age. 60+ years’ females did not cross the primary education. It is evident of a remarkable positive mobility at the middle level, the completion rate here ranges from 13% to 25% for the 30 years plus ages and it increased to 40% –65% for the under thirty years age group (See table 7)

Table 7: Completion rate (%) at various educational levels among Muslims in select villages of Murshidabad District, 2016.

Sex	Primary	Middle	Secondary	Higher Secondary	Graduation & above
	60+ Years age
Male	40.0	30.0	20.0	20.0	10.0
Female	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
All	50.0	25.0	16.7	16.7	8.3
	50-59 years age
Male	52.6	21.1	10.5	5.3	0.0
Female	50.0	44.6	0.0	0.0	0.0
All	56.0	20.0	8.0	4.0	0.0
	40-49 years age
Male	58.5	17.0	9.4	5.7	3.8
Female	43.2	8.1	5.4	2.7	0.0
All	52.2	13.3	7.8	4.4	2.2
	30-39 Years age
Male	83.1	35.6	35.6	13.6	5.1
Female	59.5	16.2	16.2	4.1	2.7
All	69.9	24.8	24.8	8.3	3.8
	20-29 Years age
Male	69.3	38.6	27.5	17.6	2.0
Female	86.4	39.8	28.0	11.0	3.4
All	76.8	39.1	27.7	14.8	2.6
	18-19 Years age
Male	86.7	53.3	11.1	11.1	0.0
Female	95.2	78.6	31.0	7.1	0.0
All	90.8	65.5	20.7	9.2	0.0

Source: Primary Survey (September- November 2016)

At the secondary level, the completion rates lie between 8% and 17% for forty years and above ages and it becomes one in every four for the 20–39 years ages and one in every five for the under 20 years’ age group. The completion rate of females is always lower than males but higher in the under-thirty age group.

At the higher secondary level, the completion rates have been declined by about four times for the 40–59 years age group and to half for the 30–39 years age group as compared to the 60 years one. Here females lagged behind males for the same ages. Marriage of girls is the main reason for the dropout at higher secondary level.

At the graduation level, the completion rate is highest (8.3%) among the 60-years + population and it is below 4% for the under-fifty year’s age and it is zero for the 50–59 years ages. The most striking fact is that the completion rate of males belonging to the 20–29 years is lower than the previous age group. (See table 7).

In brief, Muslim females in the villages show gradual change in completion rates at various educational levels. The 60 + years females complete only primary education. The 50–59 years age group becomes zero at the secondary education level, the 40­–49 years age becomes zero at the graduation level. The 30–39 age group is the first group where 2.7% of the total initially enrolled women completed graduation. At the below thirty age group, completion rate of females is 3.4% which is higher than their male counterparts. Females have shown more positive educational mobility at intergenerational levels in the villages of Murshidabad district.

Dropout

In the villages, 598 residents were enrolled at any educational institute but they dropped out of education system at various educational levels. The dropout among Muslim males is always higher than females except in higher secondary education. In the 2015–16 academic session, 35 students were recognized as dropouts. The dropout is highest at the graduation and above levels (62.5%). One in four dropped out from the secondary level and it is one in every five at the higher secondary level. At the elementary education level, the dropout is the lowest (about 5%). (Primary Survey, 2016).

Reasons for Dropout

Marriage (33%) is the top reason of dropout in selected villages. Three in every four females discontinued education for marriage followed by poverty or to enable support to the family (30.8%). One in every ten dropouts took place because they could not perform well.

Age-group wise dropout reasons (Primary Survey, 2016) notes that in the 12–14 years age-group ‘could not perform well’ shows as the main reason. For the 15–17 ages, one in every three dropout could not understand what their teachers taught in the classrooms and about one in every four girl drops out for under-aged marriage. For the 18–59 years age group, about one in every three dropout is mainly due to female marriage. In Murshidabad District under-age girls’ marriage is a chronic problem. Village level data (2016) shows that one in every four girls of the 15–17 years age group got married. But 100% of 60 + year age group had got married before 18 years of age. There has been a major positive shift in ages of marriage among rural Muslims of Murshidabad in recent times. ‘Could not perform well’ ‘and not interested’ was the main reason of dropping out for the younger generations.

Educational level of the heads of households is one of the indirect social capitals for educational mobility of the current generation. The primary survey 2016 shows that three in every four heads of households of the last year’s dropout students are illiterate. And the rest of them have the education of primary and upper primary levels in the villages.

Most of the working population is engaged in manual labourer in the construction sector or in the agriculture sector. Poverty is another important cause for dropouts. There is strong evidence that lower PCI is linked with a higher share of dropout.

Primary data (2016) shows that PCI of one in every four dropouts is ₹1000 and below and half of the dropouts come under PCI of ₹1500 and below. Poverty has pushed the younger population to out-migration. 40% of the total male population of the 15–24 years age group works out of the district. One in every four is in other states and other countries mainly the Gulf. At the post-elementary education, a major portion of Muslim male students go to Pune, Mumbai, Kerala, Bangalore, and Chennai etc. to work as manual labourers in the construction sector.

Four out of two in eighty households reported out-migration with all family member (some of them were enrolled at schools) have migrated to Delhi and Mumbai mainly to work in the construction sector as manual labourers in the last six months. Samina Bibi belongs to this category. She is the mother of Pinki Khatun (who is enrolled in class VII). She shared: “we have to build our home, he (her husband) don not have sufficient work. That is why we migrated to Delhi. It has affected the education of our three wards. But what are the options?” So what about their aspirations and careers? These families are extremely poverty stricken.

A 20-year-old Manirul, who finished his student life five years back, and has already been to Kerala and Pune for working as a manual labourer in building construction site. He said in an interview: “My parents are illiterate and poor, no one was there to help me in my studies and apart from that shall I get a job after completion of my studies? Muslims are rare in government jobs. We have to work to earn our bread. That is why I left school”.

It seems that the young generations are much concerned about government jobs. It may be the aspirations of many more. But education does not ensure government jobs to all. Attaining education is inevitable for having a better understanding of economic opportunities, health education, legal rights, democratic values etc. It takes the community to make them understand this.

Never Enrolled Population

‘Never enrolled population’ refers to that population which has never been enrolled at any educational institute and any level. In selected villages, one in every five Muslims (6 years and above age) has never been enrolled at a school. In the below 24 years age group, enrolment is 99 percent. 16% of the total never enrolled population comes under the below 35 years age group in selected villages of Murshidabad. The main cause for male dropout from educational institutions is abject poverty, engagement in economic and domestic activities (80%) and no tradition of pursuing education in the community (13%) (Primary survey, 2016). About half of the total never enrolled female population was not enrolled because there was no tradition of formal education in the community. Females used to engage in domestic work (23%).The third major cause was ‘school was far off’ (7.7%) and 14% of total females drop out from educational institutes due to long distances from their home. These females (majority of them actually brought up in other villages) reported that distance was one factor for the never-enrolments. This infrastructural deficit might have impacted educational mobility.

Feelings of discrimination are acute among Muslims, which reflected in FGDs in different age groups. Murshidabad is the victim of regional disparity which is explicit in the state’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2004.

An excerpt from FGDs conducted among the 60 + age group in the selected villages of the district shared that political factors have played a pivotal role in the backwardness of the district.

Murshidabad in the last decades elected leaders from the opposition party with a large share in the Assembly during both the left rule and now Mamata’s rule. Since last few decades whoever comes in power in the state treat the district unequally. So there is a political rivalry, which hampers the development of the district especially the educational one. All the districts surrounding Murshidabad have at least one state university but Murshidabad (the highest Muslim population concentrated district in India) has no university. One old man continued that Akshar’s daughter passed graduation last year but her parents do not prefer to send her to Kolkata or a long distance away.

They don’t prefer longer distances for higher education especially for their girls. If they want to go for Post Graduate courses specially MA/ MSc/ M.com. etc., they are compelled to go to Kalyani or Kolkata which is far off (200–300kms) from Murshidabad district.

Quality of Education

At the elementary level (class I to class VIII), there is no provision of ‘pass –fail’ to increase the retention of students according to government rules. Before no detention policy, any student dropped out of school because of failing two times in the same class/standard. So they had no chance to stay in the school premises. In an interview, a head teacher of a high school shares that it has to acknowledge that ‘no detention policy’ in elementary level brings behavioural changes too among the pupils who are not eligible to pass the exams. So it has some significance. At the end of the FGDs with class VIII students, some questions were asked to them. All the thirty two students were from government managed schools at both the villages of Mahula-Daherdhar and Ganeshnagar.

One question is “Who is the Prime Minister of India at present (2016)? Only 6 students have answered it correctly. The rest of them named Mamta Banerjee, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mahatma Gandhi etc. When asked the name of the capital of India, 12 students have given the correct answer. Some students have replied Kolkata or Mumbai. The majority of them are unable to write their home addresses in English, 5 are unable to write their own names in English properly. Not one out of thirty two students knows how to form a sentence in simple present tense in English. Only one student solved multiplication sums up to two decimal in mathematics.

Teachers claim that students face many more problems. They continue that most of the students come from the primary school with poor performances and at high school, the teachers have to cover the whole syllabus prepared by the board for the respective class. This is a major limitation the teachers have to face.

A head teacher of a school shares that Muslim parents in the locality have low educational levels and many of them are illiterate and economically poor. But now the government’s pre-matric scholarship is a good help to a little extent to backward Muslim students. He continues educational performance of students is a result of a mix of performance of students, parents, schools and administration (education department).

A school inspector in Murshidabad District in an interview has shared that 72 primary schools and 28 upper primary schools come under his inspection but he has been allotted another circle (which has 67 primary schools and 24 upper primary) as an additional charge. If he does inspect every primary school twice in month, it needs 278 days and it is impossible. He has to visit two primary schools and two upper primary schools for the mid-day meal inspection every month. He opines 30 primary schools for one inspector is ideal for proper and regular inspection. As a backward district, Murshidabad has a lot of challenges. To maintain the quality of education in elementary level Early Grade Reading and Numeracy (EGRaN, 2016) Utkarsha Abhijan (2013) have been launched in Bengal for ‘better learning outcomes’. Only time will tell how all these will impact the quality in school education.

Parents are not happy with education, which their wards are receiving. Only about 15% of parents are satisfied with the elementary education provided by the government. Interesting but pathetic is that 15% parents don’t know whether their wards are receiving a good or bad quality of education. Overall, only 20% are satisfied and one-third reported medium quality of education and another one-third are not satisfied and 13% don’t know (385 students, covering the below primary to higher education). Having low quality of education, there is higher uncertainty in securing jobs.

During FGDs it came to my knowledge that the majority of Muslim students have no clear idea about career options or aspirations for them.

Below twenty percent of students received a scholarship and half of the students did not know about scholarships, one-third students in the villages did not score 50% marks in the last examination and they were unable to apply for a scholarship in 2015–16. The majority of students told me that scholarships met less than the half of their needs.

III. Conclusion

Muslims are at the lowest step in the ladder of educational attainment, especially in higher education in West Bengal. The majority of the population of the community is steeped in poverty with other constraints. It is evident that Muslims and other socio-religious groups have improved in school education among the younger generations. But Muslims at various educational levels still are lower in comparison to the proportion to their population at the state level. The gaps in educational achievement among the younger generations between Hindus-Muslims and SCs-Muslims have widened faster than the previous generations. Higher differentials in educational attainment among the young generations at socio-religious lines are due to complex factors of better retention of non-Muslims (especially Hindus and SCs) and higher dropout among Muslims in the state. Unequal educational mobility has become salient features of West Bengal in the post-independence era. Marriage in post-secondary education levels is a vital phenomenon hampering upward educational mobility of Muslim girls in rural Bengal. The educational infrastructural deficit in Muslim concentrated Districts and Blocks in West Bengal is evident, which may have had an impact on the attainment and quality of education of the community. The majority of the population are not satisfied with the quality of education especially the elementary education, which is available to their wards.

Primary survey (2016) conducted in the villages of Murshidabad district indicates that Muslim females even are now going through a ‘revolutionary change’. It breaks the age-old notion that Muslim patriarchal society does not allow girls to participate in formal education. Sarva Shiksha Mission, Kanyashree Prakalpa, pre and post matric scholarship etc. have an impact on retention rates, especially for girls. The fact is that the completion rate is better among Muslim females under the 25 years age group within the same educational infrastructure, which is also available to boys in the selected villages. Poverty is one of the main reasons, which haunt Muslim teenagers and youths, especially boys and pushes them out of the education systems at the secondary level onwards in rural Bengal.

Economic constraints, social capital, network, class, community resources among Muslims, low level of education of heads of households, size of agricultural land, age at marriage of girls, feeling of discrimination in securing jobs, political representation, and governments’ policy toward Muslims etc. have impacted the intergenerational educational mobility of Muslims in the state. This will consequently generate socio-economic ranking or hierarchy among the next generations. Although younger generations are more likely to have higher aspirations but still the picture of aspiration levels of Muslim students is gloomy.

Basu (1974:155) mentioned that “[i]n Bengal [including present Bangladesh in British rule], Muslims were behind in higher and professional education”. In higher education, Muslims’ presence reminds us of the same dismal picture in the present times as well in the state. This has also resulted in the negligible presence of Muslims in government as well as the private-sector jobs (Sachar, 2006) in West Bengal where the ‘progressive’ left party ruled for more than three decades.

Jain (2012), Desai & Kulkarni (2010) argued that the “income based targeting may be less effective at reducing socially generated disadvantages. Muslim educational expansion may require other policy measures”. In this regard, Sukhadeo Thorat says “…the persistence of discrimination demands a set of measures to ensure a fair share to the discriminated groups in various spheres, such as ownership of assets, education, employment, political participation and governance” (Thorat. 2015: xxxvi). Proper implementation of Prime Minister’s 15 Points Programme is a crying need for inclusion and presence of Muslims in school textbooks and contemporary modern literature in the state also requires the attention to strengthen the social fabric of the various religious communities in the state.

Murshidabad district having a large population needs a state university. Various governments’ institutions, community leaders should present a new direction for the community. Various NGOs, Muslim organizations, social activists, and intellectuals should build a new horizon of hope among the members of the community for more enrolment, completion up to higher education with higher diversified aspirations. All these will ensure enjoyment of the fruits of inclusive development of the country to the Muslim community.

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Md Musharuddin Sk is Ph.D. Scholar at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur Campus

IJDTSA Vol.3, Issue 1, No.4 pp.53 to 79, April, 2018

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