Syed Tanveer Ahmed, Secretary of the Markazi Taleemi Board (MTB), has written to the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) requesting NIOS to include the Arabic language in the list of subjects prepared by it.
Sharing the information to the media Syed Tanveer said, “If the Arabic language is included in the list of subjects of NIOS, a large number of students studying in madrasas will get the opportunity to benefit from it.” The Central Education Policy (NEP 2020) emphasizes the importance of learning foreign languages and encourages students to focus on learning them. In such a scenario, including the Arabic language will spark students’ interest in learning this language and motivate them to learn a foreign language.
The MTB Secretary advised NIOS, saying, “Students who wish to take the matriculation and 12th-grade exams in Urdu should be admitted without the requirement of an Urdu centre. Currently, NIOS only allows Urdu students to enrol at locations where Urdu centres are established. In contrast, Urdu centres are not available in most cities, causing students to miss out on exams, which is a violation of their rights.”
Syed Tanveer stated, “Urdu students are capable of taking exams without studying at NIOS’s Urdu centre because several organizations and educational institutions in the country provide online coaching to these students, enabling them to qualify for exams. Therefore, we demand that NIOS allow the admission of all Urdu medium students and remove the requirement of contact classes. If NIOS accepts this demand, it will provide Urdu students more opportunities to pursue higher education.”
