All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen lawmaker Akbaruddin Owaisi on Thursday made a strong case for raising educational standards and expanding access to education while addressing a gathering at a curriculum launch event in the city.
Mr. Owaisi addressed a gathering to celebrate the development and release of the curriculum, where he said the efforts of the Salar-e-Millat Educational Trust are collective in nature and aimed at bringing first-generation students into the formal system. While education remained central, he stressed the need for students to be “street smart” and confident.
He said the initial challenge was persuading families to enroll children, even though education is offered free of charge. Teams were sent to slums to identify children who had never attended school, as well as girls who had completed Class X but dropped out and could not attend intermediate courses. In several neighborhoods, small home kindergartens were set up with basic teaching aids such as blackboards, chalk, the alphabet and numbers to introduce children to learning through play.
Mr. Owaisi emphasized on the promotion of higher education and said that only 9% of engineering students progressed to the next year without failing. Another 50% with unfinished business advanced to the next semester. He pointed out that the teaching is also extended to students of technical fields. He expressed the hope that similar to the way the curriculum for LKG to Class V was created, the educational trust would eventually create study material for civil services coaching.
“I would like to be remembered more for my work in education than my political speeches,” Mr Owaisi said, even as he urged people to sponsor the education of orphans and children from underprivileged backgrounds.
Published – 02 Jan 2026 04:18 IST
