For perhaps the first time since Independence, Muslims in India may be actually scraping the bottom of the education barrel, falling even below Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes when it comes to enrolment in literacy schools.

This finding, which has the potential to affect the discourse on reservation in education, forms part of the report of the Sachar Committee, the Prime Minister’s panel mandated to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational status of Indian Muslims. It’s now putting the final touches on its report scheduled for submission on October 31.

The Indian Express has learnt that some of the findings of the Sachar Committee reveal that when it comes to education, key to overall advancement, the Muslims could very well be the new SC/STs of India.

When broken up between Rural and Urban, Male and Female Ratios, over the time period 1965 and 2001, the Committee has found that in all cases, the rate of improvement has actually meant that Muslims are lagging behind SC/STs.

Take the case of Female Urban Enrolment in Literacy Schools Ratio. Despite the SC/STs in 1965 being only 40%, their percentage was approximately 83% in 2001. Muslims in the same category started at a percentage of 52% — much higher than SC/STs — but their percentage in 2001 was approximately 3% less than the SC/ST proportion, about 80%.

Sources said one tangible change over the past 15 years has been large-scale rural-urban migration and that hasn’t helped the standard of living of Muslims at all. They infer that if there is one thing that can help turn the tide for 15% of India, it is education and getting onto the bandwagon of the opportunities that economic liberalisation has also unleashed since 1991.

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