TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: As the Goa Board’s new academic year begins June 4, aided schools — both primary and secondary, will have to follow the old educational policy as the State has not notified the new Medium of Instruction (MoI) policy cleared by Cabinet, since the government is still examining the recent Supreme Court decision on the medium of instruction.
The new policy had envisaged making education in either Marathi or Konkani compulsory in all aided schools from the academic year 2014-15.
Besides the continuation of the old policy, the Directorate of Education (DoE) has declared schools will have to conduct classes for not less than five and half hours per day, excluding school recess with total of 237 working days and 200 instruction days having been made mandatory.
Director of Education Anil Powar told Herald that government is currently examining the Supreme Court verdict on MoI in the Karnataka case. It would also take legal opinion on the Apex Court’s verdict before notifying the State’s MoI policy, he said.
“The government is yet to take a call on whether the policy would be implemented from this academic year onwards or not,” Power stated, adding that “till the policy is implemented, schools can go ahead with the existing system.”
Tuesday morning, the Director met with Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni to discuss issues pertaining to the court verdict. Senior secretariat official opined that the government might not implement the MoI policy mid-way through the academic year.
“It is not feasible to implement the policy mid-way. The implementation could only happen from the next academic year,” an official said adding that government is currently studying the Supreme Court order.
To find solution to the vexed MoI issue, the Manohar Parrikar-led Cabinet in January 2014, decided to make education in either Marathi or Konkani compulsory in all aided schools till Class IV from the ensuing academic year. However, minority schools have been exempted from this ruling and allowed to continue education in English medium with certain conditions.
Konkani or Marathi has been made a compulsory subject from classes V to X in all minority-run as well as unaided schools. Aided and unaided schools where MoI is English, will have also to compulsorily make use of bilingual text books for all subjects. Government has also refused to give grants to all aided schools where medium of education would be English.
While the State has taken its decision, the Apex Court in a recent judgment has said that the choice of medium of education lies with students and parents, and government is bound to provide free and compulsory education to students.
Meanwhile, Powar said that the text and note books for all subjects would be made available to the students within the first week of the schools reopening. “We have already received more than 80 percent of supply, and the distribution of the books would begin from the first day of school,” Powar disclosed.
The first term for the schools will be from June 4 to October 18 while, the second term will be from November 7 to April 30, 2015. The Diwali vacation will be from October 20 to November 6, 2014, Christmas holiday have been scheduled between December 23, 2014 and January 1, 2015. The summer vacations would be from May 1, 2015 to June 3, 2015.
