Urdu's last sigh

Updated on: Monday, July 26, 2010

Satya Narayan, a teacher at one of the Urdu primary schools, was attending a workshop with some 50 other teachers at the Jamia Millia Islamia University. The workshop was on how to improve their Urdu writing. However, for Narayan, concentrating proved to be difficult as he found himself worrying for the 150 students back in school who would have to forgo their studies for the three days that the workshop was being conducted.

His absence from his school meant that the students who came there would return without being taught. "I am the only teacher teaching at the Mongol Puri Urdu medium school. I teach all the subjects and to all five sections," he says. Each teacher attending the workshop that day at the Jamia Millia Islamia University had their own story to share about conditions of Urdu medium schools in India.

There are more than 1,000 schools in the country imparting education in Urdu medium. Earlier there were no institutes for the Urdu medium schoolteachers to update themselves, like their English counterparts can do through SCERT or NCERT. "The government has since then took steps towards the promotion of Urdu language and for uplifting the standards of Urdu and Urdu medium teaching in the country. Three centres for the professional development of Urdu teachers were sanctioned at the Maulana Azad Urdu University, the Aligarh Muslim University, and the Jamia Millia Islamia University. Apart from running training programmes, these centres also come out with help-books, handbooks, Urdu style manual reference books and other teaching and reading material as per requirement of the teachers and school syllabus. The three-day workshop was part of this effort," clarifies Ghazanfar Ali, director, Academy of Professional Development of Urdu Medium Teachers (APDUMT).

According to Ali, these efforts will help promote the language but there is an urgency to improve the quality of Urdu medium schools. "There was a time when Delhi alone had 100 Urdu schools but now the number has come down to 68. These schools will gradually vanish if the governments of the day do not take appropriate measures," Ali says. Is it just the government’s laxity or is the need to study in English medium schools also responsible for this decline? "There is no doubt that knowledge of English has become compulsory for prosperity and progress. But Urdu medium schools teach all subjects like English, social studies, science, maths, and Urdu. The only difference is the medium, instead of English or Hindi, is Urdu, the rest, i.e. syllabus, books, pedagogy remain the same. The mandate for Urdu medium schools is to impart education in mother tongue. Many students who cannot afford to go to English medium schools study in the government run Urdu medium schools in different states," he adds.

But these 50 teachers, who come from Urdu medium schools in Delhi, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, feel that looking at the poor quality of education in these schools, students and parents are forced to withdraw their admission. Khurshid Nasir, who teaches in Zakir Nagar school in Delhi says, "The biggest problem is the availability of books. The entire academic year passes by and students do not get their books on time. These are translated books published by NCERT. Students study without books. Even we as teachers take the books from old students who have passed out. Sometimes the syllabus changes but due to unavailability of books we have to teach the old syllabus."

The other matter of concern is that students, who pass out from Urdu medium primary schools, find it difficult to continue their secondary education. "There are very few Urdu medium secondary schools. Those who want to seek admission in class VI, find it hard since the government schools have no provision to admit students from Urdu Medium schools to English or Hindi medium schools, which results in students dropping out from the formal system of education. On the one hand, the government has passed the Right to Education Act to ensure free and compulsory education to every child between 6 and 14 years. On the other hand, the government itself is discouraging those who want to study further," says Nasir.

Times of India

Urdu's last sigh

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