“Education and hard work can bring about a revolution among Muslims in the country,” chairman of the Career Guidance and Information Centre (CGIC) and social activist U.H. Umar told press persons after inaugurating the centre’s renovated office here on Saturday.
According to him, there is a deep sense of cynicism within the Muslim community today. “They tend to wrongly believe that opportunities for Muslims are limited,” he said while emphasizing that the centre aimed at eradicating this pessimism and integrating the Muslim youths into the country’s mainstream.
Mr. Umar said that the Sachar Committee Report, which documented the educational backwardness of Muslims in India, provided the starting point for the centre. “Education alone can pull the community out of the quagmire it is in,” he said.
A major thrust area for the CGIC was women’s education. “Muslim women are twice removed from the mainstream. Given the absence of social and family support, the centre aims at providing academic, financial, and moral support to girl students,” he said. Through a series of aptitude tests and intense personal interactions, the CGIC, a non-profit voluntary organization, was helping Muslim students find careers that suited them most, he said.
Once a student’s aptitude was assessed, they were given necessary academic support to appear for various competitive exams, he said. Mr. Mohideen said following the recommendations of the Sachar committee the Union Government had launched several schemes for Muslim students.
