The country’s largest school board, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has made a decision to allow students to attempt board exams only in English and Hindi language.
This decision has impacted three Urdu medium schools of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) from Hyderabad, Nuh(Haryana) and Darbhanga(Bihar) which offer education in Urdu language.
CBSE’s governing body decided in June that answer papers will not be evaluated if written in any languages other than Hindi and English without prior permission of the board.
Noting that only schools from Delhi are allowed to seek permission. According to the latest decision made by the board the students will no longer be able to write exams in Urdu.
The board also noted that some students from Vijayawada region who were not from MANUU schools were attempting exams in Urdu without board’s permission.
Speaking about the decision made by the board Afroz Alam, a professor of political science affirmed that the students must be allowed to write exams in the language they have been learning and pointed out that the decision doesn’t go well with NEP’s rules. He said, “Once the students start writing exams in a language they should be allowed to continue writing in that language. It’s unfair to make them write in other languages.”
Another official working with MANUU school said, “The CBSE did not have any discussions with us before deciding to stop sending question papers in Urdu. The students are finding it hard to understand the questions as they are not in Urdu. We have informed the board about the issues. The board has not resolved the problem yet.”
MANUU schools asserted that the CBSE was aware that students will attempt exams in Urdu when granting affiliation. The schools that were established in 2010 received papers in English, Hindi and Urdu but after 2020 the board stopped providing papers in Urdu. The students then continued attempting exams in Urdu despite the difficulties but now the latest decision stops them all together.
