Joel Morais
When I passed my SSC through Our Lady of Health High School, Cuncolim in the year 1989 there were nothing called as Konkani medium schools. There existed and still exist government funded Marathi medium schools up to the primary level and none of us has nor have any problems with the Marathi medium schools. During my schooling days, Konkani was not even a mandatory subject though I had taken my third language as Konkani. There happens to be a choice between Konkani, Marathi, French and Portuguese. Those days Goa had one of the best education systems. Teachers were sincere, dedicated and treating students as their own children. Stick was used as and when required and it was used with a good mind and intention.
During the tenure of the then PDF government headed by late Luis Proto Barbosa the education system at the primary level was changed to Konkani medium promising government aid and almost all of the schools succumbed to the change without even a second thought. Some parents those days also did object to the same but their voice was not so loud that can be heard. This change in education medium from English to Konkani gave rise to so called private English medium schools, presently demanding huge amount of money as fees/donations and none of the authorities has problems with such institutions. It is hard to believe that a well-known personality, running an English medium school supporting Konkani as a MoI in government aided schools.
Parents supporting English as MoI don’t have any problem with the Marathi or Konkani medium schools. We all are different people with a different mind. I could not understand how some people can turn out to be so narrow minded as far as MoI of choice is concerned. How someone can interfere with the future of our children as far as MoI is concerned? We know what is best for our children and we open minded Goans don’t require any cheap advise from narrow minded fanatics.
The so called ambassadors of the present government promise the solution during the next assembly sessions. The last Congress government fooled the parents’ with the MoI issue and now the same is continued by the BJP. The parents supporting English as a MoI are not demanding stars from the sky from the government but they are asking the right to choose the MoI for their children and the government is turning out to be deaf and dumb. Is this the government of the people?
