TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The new Medium of Instruction (MoI) policy unveiled by the government Wednesday is like a Damocles sword hanging over the heads of around 2,000 students going to Class IX and X in the next academic year, who have presently opted for Portuguese or French as their third language, since with Konkani or Marathi sought to be made compulsory, they would find it impossible to cope with devanagri script language from the academic year 2014, since they have not studied the language for a year or two.
As per the present policy, students are given choice of foreign languages and other Indian languages from Class VIII to X.
Parents of children who have already opted for foreign languages either Portuguese or French have now raised eyebrows fearing a negative impact on the performance of their kids at Class IX and X particularly for the academic year 2014 and 2015.
Aware of this issue, the Education department and Goa Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (GBSHSE) said that they would implement the new MoI policy from June 2014 after analyzing the implications that it could have on these students.
While on Thursday, the MoI policy released by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar received a favourable response from many quarters, now a section of the parent community has voiced its strong concerns on the new MoI policy pertaining to the compulsory subject of either Konkani or Marathi for children particularly in classes IX and X.
Herald spoke to officials of the Education department and Goa Board who said that as soon as the policy was notified, guidelines
would be chalked out and the same implemented in a phased manner.
While both the Education department and Goa Board are proposing to work out concessions for the 2014 batch of Class X students, the Goa Board categorically said that there would be no concessions for those in Class IX, overlooking the fact that they have not studied Konkani or Marathi in Class VIII.
The executive committee of the Goa Board is meeting this week and would draw out the implications of the MoI for Class X for 2014 and make its recommendations for some relaxations to the government.
Besides this, the Education department stated that it could consider concessions for children of those parents who are transferred to Goa on short term postings, central employees and so on.
A parent from North Goa, Paula D’Souza Thursday expressed surprise that the government has allowed Hindi to be sidelined in favour of regional languages.
“This is the first time that the national language has been made optional and Konkani/Marathi promoted to the second language slot.”
Another parent, Nisser Dias from South Goa felt that parents may not opt for a foreign language in future and may prefer to continue Hindi and Konkani/Marathi till SSC. “So in a few years the two languages of Portuguese and French may disappear from the syllabus.” He elaborated saying that within a year or two, parents may start demanding medium of instruction in Konkani or Marathi from Classes I to IV with English as a subject so that they could get the option of Portuguese or French from Class VIII onwards.
Survey panel to determine need for more schools
PANJIM: Director of Education Department, Anil Powar said that a Survey Committee will be constituted taluka-wise for the purpose of mapping schools in the State which will help to determine need for additional schools in Goa.
As Herald had reported on Wednesday, the department has kept on hold all applications for new schools in Goa from primary to higher secondary.
We are told that nearly 20 applications have been received for new schools this year of which six are for primary schools (English, Konkani, Marathi), six more for high schools and around eight for higher secondary schools.
“We have to study the existing scenario based on which the feasibility of new schools could be decided,” Powar said, adding that Goa may have more schools then required.
