Bharat Seva Trust Is A Godsend For The Community: The Need For Motivating Students And Bringing Educational Awareness In Muslim Society
By
Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
5 August
2023
Lack of
Effective Educational Awareness in Muslim Society, Inadequate Management, and
Lack Of Appreciation For Talented Students May Lead To Further Decline
Main
Points
1. Acknowledging
students' achievements through awards, praise, and value fosters intellectual
growth and future success.
2. Bharat Seva
Trust excels in recognizing and awarding these achievements.
3. Muslim
societies face inadequate education, lacking motivational resources and modern
institutions in their communities.
4. Muslim
community struggles with education but pays high fees for poets and orators.
5. When it
comes to paying money to support education, ordinary Muslims are not as
enthusiastic as they are when hiring poets and orators to participate in
religious events.
6. Muslim
intellectuals accuse Ulama of ignoring school education, while they do not
advance modern education.
7. Lack of
effective educational awareness in Muslim society, inadequate management, and
lack of appreciation for talented students may lead to further decline.
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Motivation
is essential for achieving success in a multitude of areas of human existence.
By awarding students with honours and prizes for performing well on exams,
praising them for their accomplishments, and showing them that you value them,
you can encourage them to grow intellectually and help them achieve more in the
future. Students need to be inspired to pursue further education.
There are
several methods for motivating students. They can sometimes be inspired to
succeed in ways they never thought were possible by a few words of
encouragement. You may have observed in yourself on numerous occasions that
positive feedback and words of encouragement give you a rush of energy that
inspires you to perform better and provides you strength. Bharat Seva Trust is
performing admirably in this area. This Trust is in the forefront of
recognising the accomplishments of students and awarding them honours and
prizes.
Many
organisations place a high priority on improving the quality of education for
students. Bharat Seva Trust, one of them, often encourages students to pursue
higher education with excellence. Additionally, it offers financial support to
colleges with excellent educational programmes and motivates students by giving
them rewards and recognition for passing tests with high scores.
On
Teacher's Day, five Maharishi Dayanand Inter College Patti Mourha Kanth
students received monetary awards totalling 25,000 rupees each on behalf of the
Bharat Seva Trust, New Delhi. In a letter to the college, Trustee Ahmad Rashid
Shervani stated that President Salim Iqbal Shervani is presenting this honour
in recognition of the college's increased performance at a higher level of
study. Madhav Singh, son of Udayveer Singh, Anam Jahan, daughter of Zulfikar
Ali, Prakrati Vishnoi, son of Brijesh Kumar, Vivek Kumar, son of Udaybir Singh,
and Saleha Parveen, daughter of Muhammad Akram Ali all received cash awards.
The college's management committee has bestowed blessings and well wishes on
all of the students. The Trust works in several areas to help society,
children, and people. But the best of all are the services it provides to
further the cause of promoting education.
According
to a hadith, the best of you are those who learn and teach the Qur'an. The
Quran instructs humanity on how to live well in this world and the next. Understanding the Quran, its enigmas, and its
themes is very important for that. Learning other sciences can also aid in
properly understanding the Quran. The essential point is that Islam considers
education to be the highest of all human accomplishments. As a result, those
who advocate for better and more up-to-date education are also contributing to
society's betterment.
Islam
forbids flattery, false praise, and excessive praise. The compassionate Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him) honoured many companions on numerous occasions.
The religious elders have always praised the good activities of their followers
and disciples.
William
James, a renowned psychologist, stated that people naturally want to be complimented,
encouraged, and appreciated. When others appreciate what they accomplish,
people are more inclined to improve their performance. A person's behaviour,
self-esteem, and relationship with the one delivering the praise all improve
with appreciation and encouragement.
Awards and
even verbal praise and appreciation motivates students to accomplish more. If
we look at our Muslim society, not enough attempts are made to inspire people.
Despite having extraordinary intelligence and natural talent, many Muslim
students in private Muslim schools and madrasas may not receive the same
recognition as they currently do in non-Muslim institutions. When students go
to Muslim schools and madrasas to learn, they are not given as many
opportunities to achieve as they would in other institutions. Without
mentioning specific Muslim universities and schools, I would only like to make
the general observation that our trainers occasionally overlook outstanding
students in favour of those who identify with their religious sects. For
example, Deobandi academics support Deobandi students, and Salafi lecturers
favour Salafi students.
The
environment for quality education in modern Muslim societies is exceedingly
poor, not to mention how difficult it is to find inspirational and motivational
favours for students. There are plenty of madrasas available nowadays in our
Muslim community for religious education. Divided into numerous sects, Muslims
of each group have constructed madrasas to teach Islam in accordance with their
own school of thought. However, there are very few modern educational
institutions and schools in our Muslim community and surrounding area.
Everywhere
there are schools and madrasas, there are frequently a number of problems with
the educational atmosphere and educational quality. A lot of work needs to be
done to overcome these deficiencies. Even if the needs and expectations of the
times have changed, our educational system has not yet attained a level of
standardisation that would allow it to be approved on a national level. Our modern-day leaders built madrasas and
schools, but they didn't think it was important to give them the attention they
needed for reform and development.
We may
gauge how little interest we have in promoting education and training by looking
at how many religious events our average Muslims organise where professional
poets [Naat-Khawan] and orators are required to attend. They demand a
sizable payment in advance for a lecture lasting a half-hour or an hour, or for
reciting a few poems or Naats in
praise of the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Muslim community does not
hesitate to pay them even up to 50,000 rupees for an hour-long speech or other
similar activities.
The salary
for the qualified teaching staff in madrasas and private Muslim schools is so
inadequate that even after working non-stop for a month, they would not be able
to keep up with the rate of inflation. This is despite the fact that they spend
several hours each day teaching and training students in the classroom. They only
get a 10,000 or 12,000 rupee monthly pay.
This has a
significant impact on our students and fosters a lack of attachment to
education in their minds because students typically view their teachers as
their ideals. As a result, when they observe that their teachers are not
respected or valued in the same way as a professional poet or orator, their
attachment to education is greatly diminished, and they also begin to harbour
aspirations to become naat-reciters or public religious speakers. This prevents
the awakening of their academic taste and prevents the development of effective
educational outcomes.
We can see
from our shrines and dargahs that many visitors make offers and donations
there, but we are unsure of what happens to all of that money. The educational
backwardness in our Muslim society would be significantly lessened if this
money were used to create educational centres and schools and improve
children's education and training.
In our
society, there is no shortage of so-called religious Pirs and self-described
Sufi Babas who receive donations from their followers and line their own
pockets rather than invest money in the well-being of Muslim youngsters.
Some
educational institutions receive government funding as well, and their
management collects a large sum in the name of teachers, spends it on
self-aggrandisement, and fails to pay the teachers and trainers their rightful
salaries. Even worse, they don't use the funds thus obtained to raise
educational standards.
The fact
that we ignore these flaws is our greatest tragedy. Our wealthy individuals who
have received financial favour from Allah Most High frequently waste their
wealth on pointless expenditure. The so-called bogus scholars and Mullajis, who
hijack the minds of wealthy people in the guise of religion and then syphon off
their wealth without appropriately allocating them to educational requirements,
are also to blame for this. Some of them choose to spend money to further their
own worldly aspirations.
Although
Islam has instructed us to work towards the advancement of education on all
fronts, we have not incorporated this teaching into our daily lives. It is
widely recognised that other nations and communities spend more on education
and training. To provide their children with the best of education, they work
hard and save money.
Our Muslim
society is the most backward in this respect. Our intellectuals frequently
mention several causes for this in their writings. But we spend our time
pointing fingers at one another rather than dealing with these root problems
and making things better. People who attend madrasas, for instance, do not
place a high emphasis on school education. On the other hand, school-educated
scholars frequently accuse Ulama of being the cause of all backwardness,
despite the fact that they play a smaller part in the development and promotion
of education than they could. At least, Ulama build madrasas and disseminate
religious education, even if to make more money, whereas school-educated
scholars scarcely build schools in order to provide students with modern
education. After obtaining professional credentials, all they do is attend to
their own needs If they take any action at all, they merely censure and hold
others, particularly Ulama, accountable for the backwardness of Muslims.
The effectiveness of the practical endeavour to raise educational awareness in Muslim society is lacking. The educational management in the existing educational institutions falls short of expectations, and the talented Muslim students are hardly appreciated or motivated to excel. There are issues that, if not resolved, could lead to further decline in Muslim society.
In such a
milieu, the existence of an institution
like the Bharat Sewa Trust of New Delhi is a Godsend. It is one institution
that recognises the value of modern education for Indian students and rewards
them for excellence, regardless of their communitarian or sectarian identity.
This must provide great motivation for students to continue to do better. We
can only pray for more such institutions in the country.
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A regular columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Ghulam
Ghaus Siddiqi Dehlvi is a classical Islamic scholar [Aalim, Faazil and
Mutakhassis Fi al-Adab al-Arabi wa al-Ulum al-Shariah] with a Sufi background
and an English-Arabic-Urdu Translator.
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism