New Delhi, March 25: The human resource development ministry is preparing a new time-bound road map for improving Muslim education standards in India, keen to scale up initiatives that the UPA believes helped it to return to power last year.

The HRD ministry plans to ask the country’s apex minority education watchdog, the National Monitoring Committee for Muslim Education (NMCME), to draft the road map, government sources told The Telegraph.

The road map represents HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s intention to articulate a new vision and plan for improving the education of minorities, especially Muslims. Sibal had demanded several times in internal meetings recently a detailed action plan for a time bound implementation of minority education promises.

“This is a matter that appears close to the minister’s heart. He wants the ministry to prepare a new vision and plan to take up the educational needs of minorities,” a source said.

The ministry’s proposal at present involves drafting annual plans for minority education for each of the remaining two years of the 11th Five-Year Plan that ends in 2012. The idea behind the move is to review the ministry’s ongoing initiatives on minority education, mostly the result of the recommendations of the Rajinder Sachar committee appointed by the Prime Minister. The Sachar committee found that Muslims lagged behind even the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in terms of educational opportunities.

Sibal found that the ministry’s action on minority education at present was largely haphazard and without specific deadlines.

Sibal, who became MP from Chandi Chowk, a minority-dominated constituency, is keen to use the road map to leave behind a legacy in the field of minority education, sources said.

Sibal is scheduled to meet members of the NMCME, which was set up during Arjun Singh’s tenure as HRD minister to monitor the state of minority education. At the meeting with the NMCME, Sibal is expected to articulate his plans for a new blueprint on minority education.

The ministry’s proposal at present involves review of existing initiatives and drafting annual plans for minority education for the remaining two years of the 11th Five Year Plan, sources said.

Based on the Sachar committee recommendations, the HRD ministry is running a slew of schemes especially aimed at improving education and employment opportunities for Muslims.

These schemes include programme for madrasa modernisation, in which the HRD ministry awards grants to madrasas that provide computers to students and that want to teach modern science and math.

Another scheme, started last year, aims to provide free coaching classes to Muslim students to train them to crack competitive examinations like the Union Public Service Commission examinations.