The Hindu : New Delhi News : Poor results by Urdu medium schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 31, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Poor results by Urdu medium schools

NEW DELHI, MAY 30 . The government-run Sarvodaya Vidyalaya near Jama Masjid in the walled city boasts of a pass percentage of 86 in the CBSE's Class XII results this year. A nearby Urdu medium school failed to see even one student pass the examinations.

Urdu is one of the official languages in the national Capital, but negligence by the society is turning Urdu medium schools into factories of failure. The Class XII results declared over the week-end shows a poor 28 per cent success for Urdu schools compared to 84.90 per cent for English and Hindi medium schools. The pass percentage for Class X in Urdu medium schools is a mere 25 per cent.

``There is no principal in the second shift when my daughter goes to the school,'' complains Shahida Khanam, mother of a student of Zeenat Mahal Girls' Senior Secondary School at Lal Kuan in Old Delhi. Only one out of the six girls who appeared for the Class XII examinations passed this year in the school, which received a low 7.5 per cent results for Class X.

The school's vice-principal, Faiyaz Ahmed, is upset at the way the administration takes care of the needs of Urdu medium schools. The school, which has a strength of 140 students, runs with only four staff members.

At Farash Khana's Mazhar-ul-Islam School, of the 30 students who appeared for Class XII examinations, only 11 passed. For Shafiq Memorial School near Filmistan at Bara Hind Rao, the pass percentage for Class X was 20 and 54 for Class XII.

Firoz Bakht Ahmed, chairman of Friends For Education, which works among Urdu schools to improve their standards, says the managing bodies, principals, teachers and even parents are to be blamed for the sharp decline in the academic standards in these schools.

``Some anti-Urdu political hawks have slotted Urdu as a Muslim language. It's a fallacy. Urdu is a language of composite culture,'' says Urdu editor Shahid Siddiqui, who sees the language as a bridge between Hindus and Hindi-speaking Muslims.

Most of the Urdu schools in the Capital function from sparsely-lit rooms and dilapidated structures with moth-eaten furniture and stinking lavatories. The Quami Senior Secondary School at Eidgah in the Old City has no roof since 1977 when its building was damaged during the Emergency.

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