Christian leaders ‘letting students down’ in India

(February 09, 2012) Apathy on the part of Christian leaders has deprived many children of educational funds provided by the government, a lay leader claimed on Wednesday. John Dayal, a member of the National Integration Council, said “a large chunk of money is going wanting because no research is being carried out into how much government aid is being earmarked for the education of Christian children.” A concrete policy should be formulated to make use of the over 300 million rupees set aside for Christian children’s education over the next six years, he said at a seminar on ‘Good governance and Catholic educational policy in Hyderabad. The two-day seminar which ends on Thursday was organized by association of Catholic educational institutions in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Dayal said Muslims have set up NGOs to ensure that their eight million students take full advantage of these schemes while Christians lack the awareness to capitalize on these funds. “A majority of bishops have not sufficiently explained Catholic educational policy in their dioceses,” he added. The government seeks to boost education through a variety of funds and schemes, such as the Maulana Azad foundation, scholarships, free coaching, aid grants to states and interest-free academic loans. Meanwhile, Raymond Peter, a government official who opened the seminar said that a crisis in governance in general has led to only 20 percent of all students managing to graduate. He stressed the need for reform in the education, governance and finance sectors to correct the situation.