The Hindu Business Line : An exemplary institution

In a recent move, minority education has been taken out of the purview of the Ministry of Human Resources and placed under the charge of the newly-created Ministry of Minority Affairs, something that is going to please minorities.

But there are minority institutions that have found a better way to help students. Instead of ghettoing as the government's move will surely do, these institutions strive to bring students, especially those from the minority community, into the mainstream.

The Abeda Inamdar Senior College for Girls in Pune, founded in 1990, is one such institution, which could be a role model for all minority colleges. Situated in a sprawling campus, which also has a primary school, high school, college of education, Law college, Unani college, industrial training institute, etc — it provides a mix of academic and professional education.

There is a commercial area, situated on the outer boundary, which does not interfere with academic activity, and yet generates enough funds to make the college largely self-supporting.

The motto of the college is "knowledge is power" and it provides succour to Muslim girls from traditional families, who do not have access to higher education. It is also open to other communities.

It recruits the best of teachers, irrespective of their religion, caste or creed. Though 70 per cent of the students are Muslim, only 30 per cent of the teachers are from that community. According to the management, "it does not matter to which community the teachers belong, we want the best teachers for our girls".

Without depending entirely on government grants, the college has generated enough resources to establish well-equipped laboratories that conform to modern technological standards.

The Botany department has a plant tissue culture laboratory, a museum and a herbarium. The electronics department is well equipped with signal generators, computers and microprocessors.

A spacious auditorium, well-stocked library, audio-visual aids to facilitate better presentation and well-furnished classrooms are some of the facilities available here. Even though the accent is on exposing the students to a progressive and scientific environment, value education and Islamic tradition are not neglected. All functions start with Quranic recitation and the positive aspects of Islamic culture and traditions are stressed upon.

Women's colleges generally concentrate on "soft" disciplines considered necessary to make students good wives and mothers. However, Abeda Inamdar College has a wider vision, and offers courses in emerging areas such as microbiology, environmental sciences, electronics etc in addition to the conventional arts, science and commerce streams. It also offers job-oriented courses such as office management, computer concepts and programming, secretarial practices and company management, marketing, banking and finance, cost accounting and so on.

Going beyond formal academic inputs, the college strives to provide life skills enabling students to face the challenges of their highly patriarchal society. Specially designed interative workshops encourage students to move beyond academics.

Its Institute of Career Development conducts employment-oriented workshops, and imparts information on competitive examinations and schemes for women introduced by the State and Central governments. Workshops for overall personality development, communication skills, career planning, facing interviews, etc are also conducted. Even more significantly, legal awareness programmes are conducted to sensitise students on property rights, marriage laws, dowry demands, and other aspects of personal law.

All lectures are conducted in English to promote proficiency in the language, especially among students from language schools. Our politicians do not see the cost and the risk of ghettoing minorities. People do need separate space for themselves. Just as a house needs rooms, rooms need cupboards and cupboards need drawers, people need to identify themselves with groups, sub-groups and sub-sub-groups. Even so, they cannot cease to be part of the whole. As John Dunne said, No man is an island.