Urdu-medium schools face closur

The sword of Damocles appears to be hanging over Urdu-medium Educational Institutions in the state. Just in the past 10 years alone, the  State Government has shut  down about 40 per cent of such schools/colleges and about  1,000 such institutions remain in Andhra Pradesh.
 
At the moment ,  the government axe is set to fall on three more Urdu-medium colleges — Residential Junior College, Barkas (Hyderabad) and the AP Residential Junior Colleges at Guntur and Kurnool.
The  authorities  claim that all the three colleges produced  good results in Intermediate Public Examinations (IPE) 2009 but were still being closed down for reasons best known to the government. According to  the  officials  there are no takers for the medium. Urdu pundits and officials of the former  Urdu-medium colleges, however, are not in a position to come out with any explanation. They allege that the medium’s “dwindling popularity” is a propaganda “masterminded” by the government.
 
“The state government increased the bar for entry-level requirements to Urdu-medium residential colleges. They introduced entrance tests in 2006 and from then on the number of students has been dwindling,” says the principal of an Urdu-medium College on condition of anonymity.
 
Also, the schools/colleges are in a Catch-22 situation. Says poet Jeelani Banu, “The government thinks that it is a waste to run Urdu-medium institutions as there are no students. But students do not come precisely because the state doesn’t care to provide facilities on a par with Telugu or English-medium institutions!” Banu further added that  there are many private and aided Urdu-medium schools which are quite popular but students have been forced to opt out for want of facilities.
says Prof. Khalid Syed of Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
Academics also point out that the medium was being sidelined for largely commercial reasons. “The problem is not with the language but with the state government that does not provide teachers to these institutions. Instead of closing them, the government should pay more attention to them” quips Prof. Khalid Syed of Maulana Azad National Urdu University