Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, on September 24, had a well-curated virtual interaction with teachers and parents of primary school students from across the State in an attempt to reassure that the Education portfolio receives his undivided attention even as he handles many more portfolios.
On the other hand, Herald in its special series on the state-of-schools in Goa travelled to Veling-Priol and Keri, where parents are agitated by the government’s bid to merge six government primary schools – four in Veling-Priol panchayat jurisdiction and two in Keri. Parents are angered as the merger would force their children to travel atleast 5-6 kms. With almost no public transport facility in the area, children will have to either walk or parents will have to arrange for transport facilities.
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During the talk, the Chief Minister informed the audience that the State will recruit about 150 teachers by November and focus will be on math and languages in primary-level education. He assured that schools will neither be closed nor merged without consulting the parents, even while reemphasising that implementing the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is the priority.
However, a glance at the annual statistics released by Goa’s Directorate of Education (the last report released in December 2019) reveals that between the academic years 2010-11 and 2019-20, the teacher-students ratio has increased from 1:25 to 1:27, even while the number of enrolments in the primary level schools have dropped from 99,975 in 2010-11 to 98,520 in 2019-20.
While there were 921 government-run primary schools in 2010, there were just 742 in 2019. Nevertheless, the number of government-aided primary schools increased from 179 in 2010 to 282 in 2019 and the number of unaided primary schools reduced from 145 to 125. While in 2010 the government-run schools catered to almost 35 per cent of the total enrolled students in the State, the percentage dropped to less than 21 per cent in 2019.
The statistics clearly indicate that despite being in power from 2012 onwards in the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led subsequent governments have failed to focus on the education sector.
Parents in Veling-Priol have threatened to admit their children in private schools en masse. But will the threat hold any ground given the government’s standpoint that it shall not bow down to threats and protests, especially those which do not have any immediate fall-out or threat to the government’s stability to be in power.
We have witnessed what happened recently to the seven anganwadi workers who protested against being terminated from service and none less than the Chief Minister himself had demanded an undertaking that the anganwadi workers would not participate in any form of protests or agitations against the government. They were reinstated after 47 days of chain hunger strike and after political leaders across parties had intervened in the matter.
The present dispensation under the Bharatiya Janata Party does not believe in leaving any scope and space for the Opposition. Hence, it has brought about power accumulation which entitles it to bulldoze any protest, agitation or opposition to its policies.
The announcement by the Chief Minister that 150 new teachers will be recruited by November is a welcome step, as also the assurance to relieve the teachers from the duties of Block Level Officers (BLOs). Though it’s too little too late, the question arises on the type of recruitment. The government of the day has a strong belief in recruiting its entire staff on contractual basis and most of the teachers appointed during the last decade have been working on annual contracts for years at almost one-third the salary of regular employees.
The Chief Minister during his ‘Shiksha Pe Charcha’ also accused high schools of misusing the Balrath buses to influence parents and to bring children from villages and neighbouring areas to their primary schools.
However, it’s high time that the Chief Minister and his officials in the education department introspect the problems with the functioning of the government-run primary schools and instead of accusing the aided and unaided schools take to overhauling the system.
Education in Goa needs the focal attention of the system for the prosperity of the future generations.
