Urdu-medium students struggle with their plight yet again

An edited version appeared in the Indian Express on March 9, 2009.

Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, March 7, 2009

Daniya Alvi, 17, doesn’t want to fall through the gaps. A Class 12th
student at the Jama Masjid SKV No. 2 school, her CBSE board exams
results is her only ticket out of the squalor of her life.
In the family’s one-room tenement, Alvi studies through the night
sitting against a kitchen wall, the only space available, translating
from Hindi to Urdu from borrowed textbooks and struggling with tough
words as most of her other classmates who are taking the CBSE board exams this year.
“It’s very difficult but we have no other choice. One textbook (NCERT)
didn’t come this year,” she said.
With Urdu-medium schools lagging behind in terms of pass percentage
typically because of lack of textbooks, teachers for science and
maths, and lack of infrastructure, it is students like Alvi who suffer
the most.
While the government has taken initiatives this year like giving funds
to Urdu-medium schools, most of which are clustered in the Walled
City, and coordinating with the Urdu Academy that can help translate
the question banks, it may just not be enough.
Education Secretary Rina Ray said she expected the results to be
better this time. If not 100 percent, it should at least hover around
90 percent, she said.
But Ray is cautiously optimistic. The problems plaguing the
Urdu-medium schools are far too many to be addressed in one go.
“We have told them we will provide the funds, teachers, anything. We
are not trying our best to help the schools,” she said.
In the past, results have improved but the improvement has come in
spurts and hasn’t been consistent across the schools in the city.
For long, the pass percentage rates in the city for Urdu-medium
schools have fluctuated between 30 to 70 percent.
Because children come from poor households, there are chances the
family may use the money given for textbooks for other things and the
government therefore authorized schools to buy books from the market
and stock them in the library so students can borrow during exams,
officials said.
“We have given them options. We have told them to photocopy books,
question banks, anything. We want to help,” Ray said.
But those efforts may still fall short of bringing these schools and
students up to the standards. Most students are first-generation
learners and come from low-income families. For many students,
attending school is a passport to a better life but given the state of
affairs, it may remain a dream. These students can’t afford private
tuitions, often work after school, and depend entirely upon the school
and the teachers to help them cope with the curriculum.
After Alvi’s father went through a heart surgery last year, it has
been an uphill battle for the family. Alvi had to help out with family
finances and she started taking tuitions for four hours everyday
bringing home around Rs. 1,500 so the family could survive.
But she has continued to attend school and wants to go on to college
and eventually become a teacher. She had wanted to study science but
her school didn’t have the science stream and she could not have
afforded private tuitions anyways, she said.
Up until the day before her board exams began, Alvi was spending hours
teaching other children prepare for their exams.
“That took away a lot of my time and I am worried about the results
now,” she said.
Alvi, who lives in a joint family in an old house in Kala Mahal that
is teeming with family members with little children running in and out
of the house, visitors flocking every now and then, and loads of house
work, scored 75 percent in her Class 10 exams. Her family,
particularly her mother Ruby Anwar, wants her to be independent so she
doesn’t have to suffer the fate of so many Muslim women who dropped
out of school.
“We had to struggle a lot to keep her in school. We are very proud of
her,” she said.
Firoz Bakht Ahmed, a commentator on social and educational issues,
said the despite government efforts this year, Urdu-medium schools,
around 12 of which are run by government, have lagged behind. These
schools have often functioned in makeshift tents and have had no
teachers for certain subjects for years. Besides, there is always the
non-availability of textbooks.
In history, only one textbook was available in the markets this year,
according to Atika, a Class 12 student at one of the Urdu-medium
schools.
“We had to read in Hindi, then translate and then write the exams in
Urdu. It is a lot of effort,” she said.
In 2008, the overall pass rate in Urdu medium schools in Delhi was 67
per cent , according to Bakht who runs Friends For Education, an NGO.
“It is a huge problem and the only solution I see is introducing Urdu
as a language in all schools rather than having Urdu-medium schools,”
he said. “There’s no point because at the university level, there is
no Urdu-medium colleges.”
Teachers at Urdu-medium schools often face an uphill task when it
comes to teaching. They often translate from Hindi or English in class
to help students.
Mudassir Jahan, a teacher at the Jama Masjid SKV no. 2, said a lot of
time in wasted in trying to translate material from Hindi because
textbooks are just not available.
“Even in political science, we had to translate this year,” she said.
“And to add to it, there are always vacancies in schools because there
are not enough teachers. We have to do so much at our own level
because there is no other option.”
The school has had a 100 percent pass percentage rate but then it is
only one of the few schools to boast of such an impressive result.
Others have languished with dropout rates going up.
Many Urdu medium schools have principals and teachers who are from
English or Hindi medium schools but were transferred to Urdu-medium
schools in a reshuffling experiment a couple of years ago. The logic
was to have Muslim teachers go to Urdu-medium schools but where then
it didn’t take into account whether teachers knew Urdu or not. It was
taken for granted, some teachers said.
Jahan has never learnt Urdu formally. She was transferred to the
school in the Jama Masjid area as part of the transfers that was meant
to fill the gap of non-availability of teachers in these schools.
But because she had studied Urdu at home, she was able to cope with
her new responsibilities, she said.
Urdu is also the city’s second language, Punjabi being the first.
Urdu-medium schools have attracted students because these are in areas
where the minority population is high and most parents do not want to
send their girls far to attend school.
But hopes are running high this year again.
As Alvi continues with her preparation, she is also hoping to get some
scholarship. If not, she might just have to drop one year and apply
again if she can avail of the Ladli Scheme of the Delhi government.
And, as her parents and teachers put it, if she does fall through, it
is the system that is to be blamed and not her.