Faridabad: An all India seminar on “Scope and Status of Minority Education in India” was organized at and by the Heritage Global School, Faridabad in its scenic and state-of-art campus..The speakers and participants shared views on the issue of educational status and scope of Indian minorities, especially Muslims, and on how to provide quality education for alleviating the obtained backwardness.
On this occasion, the visionary educationist and founder of Al Falah University, Jawwad Ahmad Siddiqui presented the key note address. He said “Instead of blaming others let’s do our share of work since individual efforts are always successful as could be seen from the examples of many institutions.” He also congratulated Saeed Ahmad and Mr Nasir Khatri for their huge contribution for building a beautiful school in one of the most backward pockets of the country.
The guest of honor and country head of Islamic Relief India, Akmal Sharif, remarked that excellence should be the hallmark of Muslims as it has been mentioned in the holy scriptures as an obligation. “But, nowadays we avoid hardship and try to manage things somehow. We have to change our attitude and let’s work for perfection” Sharif urged.
Dr Shabistan Ghaffar, president of All India Confederation for Women’s Empowerment through Education, highlighted the importance of management of institutions at three levels: Legal, infrastructural and instructional. “We have to be vigilant and alert before establishing any institution within the legal framework” she advised.
Rama Meganathan from NCERT presented an eye opening status of linguistic minorities particularly those who speak Urdu. He said that minority people are not enrolling for their mother tongue education and lots of budget allocated for minority language development is not utilized properly.
Syed Mansoor Agha, vice president, All India Educational Movement, made it clear that home environment plays a crucial role in child’s education and development. He appreciated promoters of the two exemplary institutions that have come up recently in a backward locality like Dhwaj in the form of Al Falah University and Heritage Global School with excellence as their motto.
While speaking on the importance of experiential learning to develop creativity and leadership skills in schools, Dr Azim Khan, academic director SIT-USA, urged that teachers should have regular training programs to enhance their skills.
Abdul Rashid Agwan, the chairman of Institute of Policy Studies and Advocacy, pointed out about some ongoing global changes in the field of quality education such as globalization of education, emergence of Asian countries as top rankers on PISA scale, increasing use of technology, better understanding of child psychology and bulging public spending on human development, etc suggested that liberal system of education as represented in the Finnish model seems more suitable for future India rather than the elitist model currently vogue here.
Shoaib Raza Khan of NIOS, Abdul Rashid general secretary of AIEM, educational activist Mohd Fuzail and Shahzad Alam Burni, former president AMU Students Union, also expressed their views.
At the beginning of the program, Dr A.V. Bhalla, director of the school, welcomed the audience and heighted the salient feature of the school whereas the principal of the school Dr Haleema Sadia introduced the theme of the seminar and its significance for educational advancement of weaker sections of the country. Akmal Hussain, head of technology, Bonton Infotech, anchored the program.
Other dignitaries of the seminar included Mohd Shafi, Mrs Ghazala Hashmi, Dr Omair Anas, Mrs Sahar, Mrs Rubeena Khan, Fowad Jilani, Safdar Imam, Abu Saeed, Mohammad Anwar and Musharraf Hasan Kamal, etc.