The one-eyed monster has once again raised its ugly head: two lakh parents of children are angry and pleading with this government to legislate the well-known and progressive decision making government grants to Church-managed primary schools permanent. These schools are attended by students from various communities in Goa. Roman Catholic priests deserve our deepest appreciation. I assume they do it for love and not to get a reserved, air-conditioned room in heaven. That they do it is a fact, and deserve our appreciation even from me, a lapsed Roman Catholic and full-time atheist.
Jesus Christ once observed how there isn’t a greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. These educators do it for our impoverished and young fellow Indians from various communities, every day of their working life.
The previous government saw a polarity of views within the RSS over MoI with Prof. Velingkar taking on CM Manohar Parrikar, making it a pre-election issue, ending in a disastrous and humiliating defeat for the former and his supporters and causing serious damage to the BJP. The well-intentioned teacher then made it his mission in life to convince parents (and not force them) to educate their primary school children not in English but in an Indian language. How successful was he? While I admire the good professor’s idealism, it is badly misplaced and an example of unhealthy nationalism.
I wonder why he didn’t try to convince the parents and their children not to aspire for a higher salary or higher status in life? That is precisely what parents want for their children because English is the linguistic currency of today to a better and more comfortable life. A tremendous sum of money pours into the Indian economy and Goa from abroad, and – other things being equal – it is because of Indians proficiency in the English language. As the Indian economy becomes more internationalized, proficiency in English is also extremely important in India, too.
While we teachers need to teach it is equally important for us to be able to learn, too. We need to develop a new mindset. I have known some teachers in the Humanities who have used the same lecture notes for decades. We need to have as much heart as head, if not more. Ideas and nationalism when healthy is great but when taken to an extreme is dangerous and counter-productive. If a extreme nationalist wanted the English language to be banned because it is foreign and not Indian – replacing it with Hindi or Sanskrit – what will happen to the Indian economy?
Aided and unaided English-medium schools have a larger number of primary school children than government-aided primary Konkani and Marathi schools. The reason is simple: the standard of education is higher and some parents can afford to pay to send their children to unaided English-medium schools. The government needs to increase the number of English-medium aided-schools to give each and every child in Goa an equal opportunity to study in an English-medium school. Parents who want to enroll their children in Marathi or Konkani medium government-aided schools will enjoy the same rights as they do now.
