People of Kashmir love watching bollywood movies. A large number of artists/singers, script writers, lyricists, technicians are also working in the film and television industry and winning hearts with their stellar performances.
But when it comes to studying Hindi in a classroom environment, not many Kashmiri students are stepping forward to learn the language. Abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and renewed focus on introducing Hindi in the school curriculum has also failed to enthuse students from taking the first step.
As per the result gazette issued by the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School education, less than 50 students opted for studying Hindi between 2019 and 2021 in class 12.
According to the statistics, “only 12 students appeared in the Hindi language exam in 2019, 19 in 2020 and 18 in 2021 in class 12 board examinations from Kashmir division. In contrast, more than 18,000 students opted for Hindi from Jammu division in 2022 and in 2023 a total number of 10198 students, mostly from Jammu, opted for Hindi as an optional language. The exact number of students who opted for Hindi from Kashmir was not immediately known as the result gazette had not issued separate data for Jammu and kashmir division after conducting a joint examination for the first time in this session.
Students from the Arts stream choose one of the languages as an optional subject beside other streams. On the other hand, Urdu language tops the chart while Arabic,Persian, Kashmiri and Punjabi fare better than Hindi. Interestingly, due to the sizable sikh population in Kashmir valley the number of students opting for Punjabi is more than even Hindi language.
After Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Kashmiri language is the most preferred in the classrooms.
In the first week of February 2023, the Jammu Kashmir State Council of Educational Research and Training (JKSCERT) had constituted a committee to chart out a mechanism for teaching and learning of Hindi language in schools of Jammu and Kashmir.
The idea was to teach the Hindi language of classes 1st to 10th in all schools of the Union Territory and the Director, JKSCERT had even sought suggestions from the expert committee.