CM says policy with Law dept, Law secretary says he has no idea
CM announced policy to be out in 8 days, 4 working days have passed
Education dept waits for its ‘minister’ to finalise & send file for notification
Interestingly both English and mother tongue lobbies feel policy will not differ from draft policy
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Medium of Instruction and controversy seem to walk hand in hand. The Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who is the Education minister had announced that the policy would be announced within 8 days – at least four of which have already gone by.
According to the authorities the policy is being vetted by the Law department. However, the Law department says that it has not received the file and the chief minister is supposed to be out of station for the next couple of days, leading many to ask when the policy was coming out or was it going to be delayed once more.
Announcing that the Medium of Instruction (MoI) policy would be notified within next eight days, the Chief Minister, Thursday last said that the issue of grants and recognition of schools would be addressed while re-drafting the policy in line with the Supreme Court order.
“After interpreting the SC decision we will have to slightly redraft our policy. We were not expecting the SC decision when the policy was formed. There will be a few changes here and there,” Parrikar had told media, though maintaining that there was nothing wrong with the State MoI policy.
According to Anil Powar, director, Education department, once the file comes to the department it would be notified. “The file has gone for legal opinion. Once it comes to us, we will notify the policy,” he said.
According to the Education department, the policy will be finalized by the minister.
However, Law secretary Pramod Kamat has no idea where the file, which is supposed to be with him, really is. He said “The file has still not reached us.”
Many of the stakeholders are however confident that was a matter of time for the policy to be announced and that the Supreme Court decision would not force too many changes in the policy.
Yugank Naik, who is one of the main proponents of the mother tongue as medium of instruction felt that the Supreme Court order would not necessitate much of a change.
“The Supreme Court order is on a Karnataka case, I don’t feel will have any implication on Goa. Both are different.” Clearly, facts, which are contrary to what Naik says, are not allowed to come in the way of belief.
Fr Zeferino D’Souza, of the Diocesan Society of Education too felt that even the point about the free and compulsory education underlined by the order would not affect the State.
“Supreme Court order is with regard to medium, not with regard to grants. The Supreme Court has not spoken about grants. I don’t think there are going to be any much changes in the MoI policy even after the Supreme Court order.”
He also said, “If free and compulsory education has to be enforced then the grants have to come from the central government.”
Savio Lopes of FORCE, one of the main proponents of the theory that the choice of medium should be left to parents was of the opinion that the Apex court order would not make much of a difference.
“The indications we are getting is that there will be change. We have to see what the interpretations of the government notification are,” he said.
“The indication we are getting is that this will not happen,” he said when asked if the Supreme Court order would open up the field to other schools to start with the medium of education as English if the parents want it.
But the biggest ask is, where is the policy and who is vetting it if the Law secretary isn’t.
