PANJIM: Majority of parents across Goa support mother tongue as Medium of Instruction (MoI) for their children at the elementary education, said the government-appointed Bhaskar Nayak panel in its report, which was placed in the House during the recently concluded State Assembly Session.
Almost a year after the panel submitted its report to the government in January 2020, the report, which was expected to help the State zero upon the MoI policy for students at the primary level, was made public.
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The panel stated that most the talukas where the committee visited and held meetings, were in favour of mother tongue as a MoI; while there are some, who batted for English.
“There were many who were against the grants given to some of the English medium primary schools by discriminating against others,” the report said.
“Since the committee was mandated only to get the views of the stakeholders on the grants given to certain English medium schools, the committee could conclude that there were stakeholders, who objected to the grants and others who supported the government decision to give grants,” it said adding that ‘there were still others, who were emphatic that primary education should be in English and spoke of various benefits of English in the future careers of students.’
“They favoured English as medium of instruction. They were even willing to pay fees, if grants were stopped by the government; these included even parents of the children who could not speak English,” the report mentioned.
The committee was constituted in July 2016 for wider consultation and facilitation to the government to decide on the MoI issue. The panel had to study the entire system of grants and financial support to government-aided schools for primary education and make necessary recommendations so as to improve its overall efficiency for achieving the educational goals of the State.
The committee observed that views expressed on MoI were religion-neutral.
“One common understanding that was observed among the strong supporters of mother tongue as medium of instruction was that they were not against teaching of English as a subject at the primary level,” the panel noted.
The panel said that the stakeholders have wholeheartedly welcomed the initiative of government to appoint 296 plus trained English teachers; their only request was that such English teachers should be made available for all six days in a week and not on sharing basis as is done now.
The stakeholders were also more concerned with the quality of and access to primary education in vernacular languages rather than issue of grants.
While interacting with parents, who send their children to English medium schools, the committee observed that they are sending children to English medium schools not out of choice but out of compulsion.
According to parents, the quality of primary education in government primary schools is poor, untrained teachers teaching English subjects, poor quality of infrastructure, single teacher marinating four classes and other issues.
The committee has recommended the government to improve the quality of education at primary level, training teachers, providing good quality of education, teacher service commission to recruit teachers and others.
It also proposed the government to prescribe syllabus for pre-primary institutions for quality of education.
