MARGAO: Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar will soon face a familiar FORCE – the Forum for the Rights of Children’s Education. While Chief Minister Digambar Kamat announced the grants for primary schools which have English as a medium of Instruction, Manohar Parrikar was forced to effectively make way for grants to government aided minority institutions in his MoI policy. However, for over a year, a special assembly committee formed to tweak changes to the new education bill to match it with the cabinet decision of the Parrikar government, has been sitting on the bill, delaying the all-important new Education Act.
There was no sign of the committee report to finally pave way for the bill. After waiting for close to a year, the government will face a confrontationist FORCE with no political backing.
After a wait of 18 months, the longest since its last public meeting, it convened general body meetings in each of the two districts to discuss the medium of instruction (MoI) issue. As the long gap between meetings raised eyebrows in certain quarters, FORCE general secretary Savio Lopes denied that there was any ulterior motive in the timing and stressed that FORCE was purely committed to seeing through their demands on the MoI.
“I will sit on an indefinite hunger strike and we will work on the strategy as to how other parents can get involved if this matter is not resolved at the next assembly session,” Lopes told Herald.
Explaining the need for the general body meeting, Lopes said that he had no disagreement with the cabinet note on the MoI policy and had been assured that the bill would be tabled in the August 2014 assembly session.
“In last year’s August assembly session, this bill was tabled but it had some variations from the cabinet note. It was sent to the special committee of the assembly that was to look into the requisite changes,” Lopes said. He added that the special committee had still not worked on this and that FORCE would fight till the Act is amended as per their demands.
On its long bout of inaction Lopes said, “We have not been silent. We have put pressure on the government and were assured that the cabinet note on MoI policy would translate into the Education Act being amended as per the necessary changes in the March assembly session”.
But the amendment had not been finalized in the March assembly session and FORCE had to inform the parents of this at the general body and the two meetings were convened.
On allegations that FORCE supports minority schools, Lopes reacted sharply, ‘We are open to work with any school that wants to give the parents the right to choose the MoI for their children. We are not political, communal or caste minded.”
“Then there are government, private and government-aided schools. The issue concerns this group of minority schools who have given the parents the choice of MoI. Naturally we are aligned with them but we are open to work with other schools as well,” Lopes explained.
He blamed the non-minority aided schools who were not affected by the MoI decision but filed a petition in the court and tried to sabotage FORCE’s plans. “Why did they have to file a petition? Were we forcing them not to study in the regional language? They had their choice. When they enforced the bandh we ensured that these minority schools remained open. That doesn’t make us communal,” Lopes said.
Lopes denied rumours that he would later use this platform to further his own political ambitions and stressed that he is only the spokesperson and secretary of the executive committee of FORCE.
