Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) Hampered by non-availability of textbooks in the students’ mother-tongue, lack of teachers, and cramped accommodation, Delhi’s Urdu-medium schools have still managed to post pass percentage of nearly 80 in the CBSE Class 12 examination, it was announced Monday.

The dozen or so Urdu medium schools, mostly concentrated in the old city area and run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, posted an overall pass percentage of 79.15 percent this year, said education activist Firoz Bakht Ahmed of NGO Friends for Education.

The 2011 result was slightly down from 2010’s 81 percent - but a far cry from the average 20 percent seen two decades ago, he added.

The success stories among this year’s students include a tea stall employee’s daughter, Farheen Naseem, who topped in Jama Masjid-2 (Urdu medium) School with 84 percent, followed by Atiya (83 percent) - the daughter of a washerman).

Umra, third with 81 percent, has a father who doesn’t earn as he is paralysed, while Ilma Ishaque, also with 83 per cent, is the daughter of a petty labourer at a furniture depot.

The school, headed by Shabana Nazir, managed a 98.5 percent result.

Meanwhile, the Anglo-Arabic School displayed more promise, posting a success rate of 63 percent over last year’s 45 percent, while the Fatehpuri Muslim School in Chandni Chowk too rose from last year’s 68 percent to 75 percent in 2011.

However, some schools had a declining pass percentage. The Government Girls School at Pataudi House (Darya Ganj) came down to 86 percent from 2010’s 99 percent and Hakim Ajmal Khan Girls’ School came down to 90 percent compared to 94 per cent last year.

According to Ahmed, many problems plague these schools, ranging from non-availability of Urdu medium texts, a vast number of vacancies in all the streams, lack of state funds, ineffective managing committees and teachers, and apathetic parents.

“Urdu medium schools have been working under tremendous pressures and problems. Their results will improve only if the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) translates the Urdu medium texts in time, vacancies are filled up, the state funds are sufficient, the parent community is on the ball. Unless the managements, principals, teachers and parents work in harmony to uplift the schools’ education levels, nothing can be done,” he said.

He also stressed attention to extra-curricular activities in Urdu schools that “actually make the child an achiever and a go-getter”.