PANJIM: Refusing to comment on when the Select Committee would submit its report on the Medium of Instruction issue, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Saturday clarified that the new scheme of financial grants would also consider new schools switching from English to Konkani/Marathi medium.
“Three and half years ago we had announced a scheme of Rs 12 lakh one time grant for the schools, whose medium of instruction is in the mother tongue besides an yearly grant of Rs 1 lakh but it was observed that only two schools could manage to avail the facility since it was very cumbersome to get all licences, etc, for infrastructure development. Hence in this budget we announced that we will henceforth give a grant of Rs 400 per student to each school for 11 months,” he said, addressing the media. “The old scheme is replaced by the new one,” he added.
This, Parsekar said, has been done as the government is of the opinion that the medium of instruction at the primary level should be in the mother tongue.
Asked whether this means that the MoI issue has been swept under the carpet with this scheme, Parsekar said, “Well, I can’t comment on it as the issue is with the select committee and until it submits its decision nothing can be done.” On when the decision is expected, he replied, “I don’t know.”
Giving details of schools imparting education in the mother tongue, he said, there are around 126 schools with 40,000 students learning in the mother tongue. Of these 93 aided schools are in the Marathi medium, 29 in the Konkani medium and four in the Urdu medium. Besides, he said, there are 853 government primary schools imparting education in the mother tongue.
