Future remains uncertain for students
KAINAAT STUDIES in eighth standard in Government School Qaziq Camp but she can?t pursue her education through Urdu medium in either her school or any other school in Bhopal from the next year.
KAINAAT STUDIES in eighth standard in Government School Qaziq Camp but she can’t pursue her education through Urdu medium in either her school or any other school in Bhopal from the next year.
She hasn’t yet decided about what to do after eighth — either she will switch to another medium or drop out of school education altogether. Not many girls reach up to college in this poor locality but that is the fate of most Urdu-medium students.
Farah, Insha and Rakhshan also face a similar predicament. “They might switch to Hindi medium though it will affect their education as it takes a few years to cope with the abrupt change”, says her teacher. The school offers education in both Urdu and Hindi mediums up till eighth but from ninth standard only Hindi medium is available.
There are 25 Urdu-medium students (out of 66) in sixth standard in the same school and they will also face the problem after a couple of years. “This school might also close down its Urdu medium in a few years from now”, she adds.
Congress leader Sanatullah Siddiqui says that it took a campaign by residents to continue the Urdu medium in the school.
“It seems no body is interested in running Urdu schools. When students don’t get books for months they under-perform and it only exacerbates the situation in a locality where people don’t take education so seriously”, adds Siddiqui. The school principal Tasneem Bano says that education through one’s mother tongue is essential but lack of adequate and well-trained Urdu teachers is a big factor.
“We don’t have many faculty members who can teach science and mathematics in Urdu though they can teach language”, she rues.
Sources in Department of Public Instructions (DPI) say that proposal of appointing 3,000 Urdu teachers (one teacher for a cluster that has 250 Muslims) has been shuttling from one department to another for almost a year.