Few opt for language schools

Preference for civic-run regional language schools in the city is clearly waning, as more and more students opt for either Hindi or English medium schools, reports Bhavika Jain.

Preference for civic-run regional language schools in the city is clearly waning, as more and more students opt for either Hindi or English medium schools.

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In the last one year, four municipal schools offering instruction in regional languages have been forced to shut down due to an insufficient number of students.

The civic body runs schools in eight languages — English, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu and Gujarati. According to statistics available with the BMC, number of students in schools offering instruction in six regional languages — Marathi, Urdu, Kannada, Gujarati, Tamil and Telugu has been falling.

Abbasaheb Jadhav, education, officer, BMC, said: “One of the main reasons for this mass drop out is the lack of teachers for these regional language schools, especially for the south Indian medium schools. So the students prefer to shift to English medium schools or move to private schools.”

According to Jadhav, Statistics available with the education department state that the city has 1,393 municipal schools with 46, 0854 students. Al last count, about 560 teaching posts were vacant in these schools.

“Since last year, the number of students opting for English-medium schools has shot up by 3,994, while the number of students in Hindi-medium schools has increased by 1,307,” said.

Marathi-medium schools are among the worst hit in the city with about 54 classes merged into less than 20, as there weren’t enough students to.

Jadhav also added that a lot of students were attracted towards English medium schools.

In Mumbai since the last year, drop out number from Marathi-medium schools was 8,143, while 454 students opted out of Urdu-medium schools.

Meanwhile, 537 students from Gujarati-medium schools, 783 students from Telugu-medium schools, 581 students from Tamil-medium schools and 136 students from Kannada-medium schools also dropped out.