India's student population in the 5-19 age group has in creased by 30% between 2001and 2011but the rise is unevenly distributed among religious communities, with lagging sections playing catch up.
Among Muslims, the number of students surged by 44%, and within that, girls recorded a staggering 53% rise. As a result, students now make up 63% of this age group among Muslims. This is still behind the 73% among Hindus, 80% in Christians and 88% in Jains -the highest student ratio in the 5-19 age bracket.
Details of student populations and employment among various religious communities are available in freshly released Census data.
In the 20-29 age group, the share of those seeking work was 20% nationwide. Among Christian youth, unemployment was strikingly higher at 26%. This is worrying because Christians were among the highest educated communities in the last Census, with 71% of those aged 5-19 studying.
Religious communities that had embraced education more widely in the past, like the Christians, Sikhs, and Jains, understandably show much smaller changes since the last Census in 2001. In fact, among Jains, there is a 10% decline in the number of students, a result of slow population growth, leading to fewer children in the studying age group though the student-population ratio is the highest. A significant increase is also seen in `other reli gious persuasions', which mainly comprise various tribal communities and faiths with fewer adherents like Parsis and Jews. The number of students increased by 64% for these communities as a whole.
Another feature of the changes in student populations is the high pace of growth of girl students. Barring Sikhs and Jains, the rate of increase is higher among girls in all communities. Among Hindus, the number of male students increased by 22%, compared to 36% for girls. Among Muslims, the corresponding figures were 37% and 53% and among `other religions', 48% and a phenomenal 86%.
All this points to the tremendous urge across faiths to attain education. Those with limited access to education earlier, whether as communities or as women across communities, are now embracing it. Hence, Muslims, tribals and women show the highest degree of change over a decade.
Just over 2% of students are working part-time as marginal workers. This proportion reaches nearly 4% for Christians and crosses 6% among `other religions'.