Intermediate students flunk language subjects

In order for a student to excel in any academic subject or profession, a foundational level of written and verbal proficiency in the primary language of instruction is a key requirement yet for thousands of intermediate students in the port city who are consistently failing their English and Urdu examinations, the chances of succeeding in their chosen career paths appear quite bleak.

Over the past few decades, the technological revolution and social media boom has instigated the downfall of the book reading culture, with children of all ages spending a great deal of their leisure time scrolling mindless reels on their gadgets as opposed to flipping the weighty pages of a novel. Where the unpopularity of reading among the youth of the country had already stalled their linguistic development to a great degree, teachers' adoption of poor pedagogical methods alongside students' excessive reliance on coached learning has laid the final brick in the wall of their failure in language subjects.

"These days the practice of reading as a hobby has died out since textbooks are the only books children are willing to even open. Most children spend all their free time scrolling on their phones. This constant usage of text and slang language has left them incapable of properly reading and writing English and Urdu," said Nuzhat Fatima, the mother of a student at the Government College North Nazimabad.

Raees, an intermediate student who failed both his Urdu and English exams during the recent session shared his preparation method. "Instead of studying from my textbook, I had relied entirely on the notes that I had received from my coaching center," said Raees.

"Coaching centers have made a specific pattern of notes for Urdu and English. Since the student is prepared according to the fixed pattern, if the examination contains questions which are somewhat unique, the students start panicking. Furthermore, half the exam papers are sent to the homes of teachers, who are not qualified enough," claimed Irfan Shah, Professor of Urdu at the Sirajud Daula Government Boys College.

According to data obtained by the Express Tribune from the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) out of a total of 106,039 candidates from the faculties of Pre-Engineering, Pre-Medical, Science General, Commerce Regular and Commerce Private, 31 percent have failed in the subject of Urdu while 34 percent of the students have failed in English during the recent exam session in 2023.

Moreover, in 2023 the number of students failing the Urdu and English exam was 61 and 51 per cent higher respectively than that in 2022; in other words 33,000 children failed the Urdu exam and 36,000 failed the English exam in 2023 for all faculties of first year intermediate. Students of Commerce Regular fared the worst in the 2023 exams, with 44 per cent test takers failing in Urdu and 50 per cent failing in English.

Dr Sarosh Lodhi, convener of the fact-finding committee and Vice-Chancellor of NED University, uncovered the reasons behind the poor results in the intermediate board exams. "Most of the teachers are not interested in teaching and are also not competent enough. Moreover, no monitoring system is in place in our colleges to supervise teaching. We have come to know that even at the university level, students are facing difficulty communicating in English and Urdu. We are in the center of an educational crisis and strict action is needed across all educational institutions," said Dr Lodhi.

"We have re-examined the Commerce Regular results as well. If a student has left the exam sheet blank, it means that they have not prepared properly. If students are not taking language subjects seriously then teachers are responsible to some extent. Students' interest in a subject is interrelated with the teachers' style of instruction," affirmed BIEK Chairman Professor Naseem Memon.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2024.