In Malappuram, civil services preparation starts at school

The next big target for Malappuram's Muslims is the civil services.

The Kerala district, second only to West Bengal's Murshidabad in terms of their Muslim population, has been striving since the 1990s to conquer religious orthodoxy and limited educational facilities, with Muslims bagging toppers' positions in the high school finals, and engineering and medical entrances. All of that has inspired the civil services dream that has caught on at high school level itself.

Two batches comprising 150 students of classes VIII and IX attend a civil services foundation course on Sundays and holidays at Areacode in the district. The eight-year course will last until they graduate, and subsequently the eligible will be enrolled in civil service coaching centres. Although the programme is open to all, most of the students are Muslim.

There was a time when the district was so short of educational resources that its schools had to recruit non-Muslim teachers from southern districts of Kerala. Then jobs in the Middle East created a new middle class who looked for better education. In 1998, a Muslim girl for the first time topped the Class X finals, inspiring others. In later years, several Muslims topped engineering and medical entrance exams. In 2011, when Muhammed Shihab, brought up in an orphanage, cleared the civil services exam, Malappuram's Muslims celebrated it as a feat by the community.

Social critic Prof Hameed Chendamangalloor said the middle-class boom has created an urge for high-end careers. "Also, the perception that Muslim representation in civil service is negligible makes the new generation aspire for such jobs," he says.

"The Muslim community has doctors, engineers and other professionals, but our representation is very poor in civil services," agrees Molayil Ashraf, who along with four other youths run the course that grooms schoolchildren for the civil services.

Five years ago, the youths started Resourceful Academy for Competitive Examination at their village Moorkkanad, near Areacode, where scores of teens are engaged in illegal river sand mining. "Last year it was Muhammed Shihab who broached the idea of starting a foundation course at school level," says Ashraf.

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