Muslims in Telangana have higher average of basic literacy rate than the national average, but they fare worse than all other communities in case of graduate and postgraduate education. Their drop out rates are also among the highest.
According to the Sudhir Commission that went into the socio-economic and educational conditions of Muslims in Telangana, their literacy rate is better than the State and national average and only Christian and some other religious minority groups have better literacy. The Commission report said that literacy rate among Muslims is 76.89 per cent compared to the State average of 66.46 per cent and national average of 74.04 per cent.
Literacy among Muslims is also high compared to Hindus (64.64 p.c.), Scheduled Castes (59 p.c.) and Scheduled Tribes (50 p.c.).
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The gender gap in literacy rate among Muslims is also low (10.38 p.c.) compared to SCs (18.10 p.c.), STs (20.10 p.c.) and Hindus (18.12 p.c.).
Quoting the 2011 Census statistics, the Commission also said that Muslims are better off in the urban-rural gap in terms of literacy as compared to other socio-religious categories. The dropout rate among Muslims in the age group of 0-29 years in 2011-12 was less than Hindus, SCs, STs, but in the 18-20 years age group, it is very high at 61.2 p.c. and 84 p.c. in the 21-29 years age group.
The Commission’s survey reveals that enrolment of Muslim students is 11.5 p.c. at school-level, but it’s only around 5 p.c. at the Intermediate level.
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Similarly, in Bachelor Degree and Masters Degree programmes (2014-15), their percentage is found to be very low with the highest of 10.85 p.c. (10,529/97,039) in Osmania University, 9.83 p.c. in Ambedkar Open University, 6.22 p.c. in Palamuru University, 3.47 p.c. in Telangana University, 3.4 p.c. in Mahatma Gandhi University and 3.13 p.c. in Agricultural University.