The Central government’s initiative to give financial assistance to 20,000 minority students in higher education has brought unexpected results. As reported in this newspaper today, half of the scholarships have been won by women. Announced in June 2007 as a follow-up action on the Sachar Committee report on the social, educational and economic status of Muslims in the country, the scheme is meant to assist meritorious students from various minority communities in pursuing technical and professional courses. In states like Karnataka and Kerala, in fact, more than 60 per cent of the successful candidates are girls — for Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, the figure is between 40 and 50 per cent.The figures yield a point often made, but not often enough acted upon. Girls routinely do as well as boys in the early stages of their education, but this does not extend to an equitable representation in higher education. The scholarship findings prove that this is not necessarily because of some natural disinclination for the long slog or a genetic indisposition to technical and scientific inquiry. It is a consequence of opportunity. Scholarships do two things. One, they provide financial support. For many students, a higher education means added expenditure and the inability to join the workforce if family circumstances so need. This applies to boys and girls, but in a culturally determined hierarchy the son often gains precedence over the daughter. Two, inasmuch as a scholarship denotes an honour, it breaks a cultural resistance to a girl leaving the immediate environs of her home and living away for a quality education. Another trend is revealed if one geographically maps the scholarship statistics and the findings of the Sachar Committee. States in which girls have a higher share of scholarships are more or less the states in which the Muslim community has better indicators according to the committee. It is pointless getting into a chicken- -and-egg argument about whether one aspect is the result of the other. But the overlap is significant. Gender equality has a bearing on a community’s development.
