Eighteen years after its conception,the Centre for Education and Development of Minorities (CEDM),formed to improve the participation and performance of students from minority communities in competitive and job-seeking exams,still finds itself on shaky ground with only a handful of candidates doing well in the exams.

Chamak scheme,one of the jobseeking courses which offers training for civil services has seen only one successful candidate among thousands from 2000,with a batch of around 50 being trained every year.Of the 60 students who received training for Group I examinations,10 have cleared the prelims this year.Sources from CEDM attributed the trend to the highly competitive nature of the civil services examinations.
Further,training for admission seeking courses for students who had appeared for Eamcet too has not met with any substantial success this year with the first two ranks in the medicine stream (of students from CEDM) being 5,603 and 9,036,at the bottom of the ladder with little or no hope of securing a seat in any medical college.However,engineering stream students trained at the centre fared better with the top two ranks being 4,540 and 8,675.Students who sought training at the centre for Icet are the only exception who recorded a 96% pass percentage.
Funded by the minorities welfare department,CEDM,the nodal agency of which is the Osmania University,also showed poor results in other job seeking courses such as Andhra Pradesh Teacher Eligibility Test (APTET) at ten centres across the state with a poor pass percentage of 36%.The institute has been however better in coaching Urdu and Telugu medium Class X students and recorded a pass percentage of 75.54% in 2011 as against 69.14% in 2010.Data for 2012 was not available at the centre.
Experts note that average and below average students flocked CEDM in the hope of cracking various competitive exams.Member of Legislative Council Syed Amin Jafri said,The CEDM is trying to do whatever it can with students despite all its limitations.Muslim students have to compete in the general category where other applicants usually have access to better facilities and learning material.
Since 1994,CEDM has been allocated Rs 15.48 crores out of which only Rs 10.76 crore has been sanctioned.This notwithstanding,the budget for 2012 has been increased to Rs 2 crore from the Rs 50 lakh that it was receiving since 2009.Sources from the centre pointed out that in a bid to improve the performance of civil services hopefuls,the centre has made a proposal to sponsor the training of 20 of their best students at reputed IAS training centres in the city.Sources said that almost half of last years budget went towards paying salaries of its 20 employees and added that another Rs 2 lakh per annum was spent on rent and maintenance of its facilities at Nizam College.
Prof S A Shukoor,director,CEDM said,We are hoping that an increase of funds this year will improve the results of UPSC and APPSC candidates.Further,civil services examinations need a lot of self study time.Unfortunately,students from minority communities look at things from an immediate gain perspective which hinders their foray into civil services.

Only one successful candidate in civil service exams since 2000,with a batch of around 50 being trained every year Top two ranks in Eamcet medicine this year are 5,603 and 9,036l and 4,540 and 8,675 in engineering A mere 36% passed APTET Since 1994,CEDM has been allocated Rs 15.48 crore out of which Rs 10.76 crore has been sanctioned;This year the budget is Rs 2 crore