by Maleeha Sofi
SRINAGAR: Notwithstanding the government offering a basket of three languages as the lingua Franca of post-2019 Jammu and Kashmir, the Urdu language continues to be the most preferred subject among the diverse language basket. In the twelfth class, the students have the option of choosing a language other than compulsory English, already a global language.
What was interesting was that the students lacked a preference to the mother tongue in Kashmir as well as in Jammu indicating identity and culture debate is more political than academic.
The expected data was part of the revelations that the Jammu Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE) results for the Class 12th made Friday last. It was the first ever result in Jammu and Kashmir in recent years in which the results of all the students from all regions were made jointly after the academic calendar was changed last year.
Of 127636 candidates who write their examinations, 82441 were declared successful, making a pass percentage of around 65 per cent, comparatively a low percentage. While the pass percentage of boys was 61 per cent, those of girls was 68 per cent.
Apart from compulsory English, there are nine language subjects for all the students appearing in the examination. Students have the option to choose any language subject among the nine. There is no compulsion to study a language subject. Interestingly only 84 per cent of 127522 candidates who appeared for English could pass it, making it the best of the entire language basket.
Of the non-English languages, most of the students preferred Urdu. The result details suggest of the 37252 candidates who appeared for the Urdu, 72 per cent passed the examination.
It remains the only language chosen by students belonging to the Science stream. All other language subjects were chosen by students of Arts only.
The Hindi language was the second preferred language in the twelfth class. As many as 10198 candidates appeared and 72per cent of them were declared successful.
What is remarkable and interesting is that Arabic is the third most preferred language as 2039 students appeared and 87 per cent of them qualified.
Persian ranked number four by recording 1738 students who wrote the examination. It stood on a success rate of 83 per cent. The Persian language has remained the court language of Kashmir for almost half a millennium Urdu replaced it the in late nineteenth century.
Kashmiri and Dogri being the mother tongue languages of Jammu and Kashmir regions respectively do not fall in the preference of the students from either region. There were only 257 students who have Kashmiri as their language subject and all of them passed. In Dogri, 251 students appeared and most of them were also declared successful.
There were 618 candidates who appeared in Sanskrit, one of the region’s oldest languages and 81 per cent of them passed the test.
Bodhi, the language of Ladakh, recorded the least number of students at 90 with 99 per cent of students qualifying it. Only 96 candidates appeared for the Punjabi language.
