In a first step towards better school infrastructure, mainly for schools in the capital and around, land has been earmarked in Bambolim just off the Goa Medical College for the education hub with new school buildings for old schools. However, just six schools have agreed to move. GLENN COSTA looks at why parents and school authorities are reluctant to grasp change even when it is offered by the government.
The Goa education scene is quite strange. In some ways it goes very high tech. Students are given laptops and tabs. But in many cases, the infrastructure of the school itself is quite pathetic.
One of the first programmes that need to be fed into the sewers of the Goa education system is the system itself, rebooted and kick started with a clear priority matrix. An immediate example of this skewed priority matrix is a telling vision of a school student with a tablet in hand under a classroom with a broken roof with rainwater dripping on him, a classroom he shares with students of five other classes.
In some cases, students have to even go for classes in places outside the school – a temple of all places. And have classes to the accompaniment of temple bells.
In the capital itself, the government has arranged for land just off the Medical college in Bambolim. However, only 6 schools have signed up to move and enjoy common infrastructure. Mushtifund Saunsthan, Panjim; Dr K B Hedgewar High School, Mala-Panjim; Rosary High School, Miramar; V Dempo Higher Secondary School of Arts and Science, Miramar; V Dempo Higher Secondary School of Commerce, Miramar and Anjuman Nurul Islam High School, Panjim have chosen to ride into a structured future. The others haven’t.
Construction work on five has started while Anjuman Nurul Islam High School is scheduled to start in September.
There are more than 10-15 schools in and around the capital whose infrastructure ranges from the nonexistent to downright pathetic. One of the schools which is housed in a building located right next to the Panjim church is in pathetic condition with the CCP itself having to step in and warn that the building was virtually on the way to be declared unsafe. The building will fall any day with overflowing toilets and trees growing on its walls. Another section of the school is in a heritage building.
Another schools, in the same vicinity, is on the same slope to the church is housed in a heritage structure that can be probably compared to a ‘bhooth bungla.’(ghost house)
On the other hand, four Higher Secondary institutions in Goa figure in the list of India’s Best 100 schools for the year 2013 ( Fr Agnel’s Higher Secondary-Verna, MES Higher Secondary – Vasco, St Xavier’s Higher Secondary-Mapusa and GVM Higher Secondary-Ponda).
The survey was conducted by the reputed national magazine ‘Engineering Watch.’
This striking contrast brings to mind as to why the government cannot ensure that schools that do not have the proper infrastructure are not pulled up and forced to ensure that students get the best.
Education insiders say that the provision of the law including the RTE act on infrastructure are difficult to enforce and attribute this to the contact that people who run these schools have with the powers that be. Or the parents are well connected and do not want to move to other locations that may be better but are further away.
As one senior education official put it – Goa is such a place that everybody has contacts – if not directly then through somebody else. And they actually pull strings for things to happen to their own detriment- like not shifting to a better location with top of the line infrastructure.
So the children are the ones who suffer as the laws regarding basic infrastructure are not enforced or even enforceable.
Nothing for granted
A loan cum grant scheme offered to schools on a platter hardly has takers.
The flagship infrastructure loan cum grant scheme for educational institutions has had a very poor response with only 4 schools getting the grants though 12 had applied.
The government has decided that this scheme will be extended for the last time till 2014-15 with the chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who is also the education minister saying that no further applications would be entertained after March 31, 2015.
“I have observed that the educational institutions don’t come forward when the schemes are launched and when the cut off date expires, they come with a request that it should be extended,” he said while
distributing sanction letters to four institutions – Mustifund Saunstha, Harmal Panchakroshi shiksha mandal, Manguirish Vidyalay Saunstha and Dr K B Hedgewar.
Under the scheme, government is providing financial help to the government aided institutions to upgrade the existing infrastructure. Goa State Infrastructure development corporation (GSIDC) is the implementing agency.
Under the scheme, Rs 50 lakh are granted to institutions having a primary, Rs one crore to secondary schools, Rs two crore to high secondary and Rs 3.50 crore to institutions having primary, secondary and higher secondary education.
