No MoI bill in forthcoming Assembly session

All hopes that the crucial Medium of Instruction (MOI) policy would be tabled in the winter session of the Legislative Assembly has fizzled out with the Select Committee confirming the delay. With this, it is now certain that the five-month-old written assurance by 10 BJP and Independent legislators to Forum For Rights of Children’s Education (FORCE) ensuring to table the policy in the House has no stand. “Further to our discussion held late yesterday evening regarding your demands in the matter pertaining to MOI. In regards to Amendment to Education Act 1984, As per the cabinet decision of July 1, 2014. We would like to reiterate the assurance given by Chief Minister (Laxmikant Parsekar) in the Assembly that the (Select) Committee proceedings will be expedited and the matter be placed before the House for its approval in the next Assembly session Dec 2015/Jan 2016,” was what the MLAs had said while submitting the signed letter to the pro-English group. Interestingly, Dr Pramod Sawant – one of the seven members on the committee – did not sign on the letter but verbally assured to raise the matter in the Assembly. The signatories included Avertano Furtado, Mahadev Naik, Alina Saldanha, Caetano Silva, J L Carlos Almeida, Subhash Phaldessai, Siddharth Kunkalienkar, Glen Ticlo and Nilesh Cabral. The written commitment on August 1, 2015 followed when FORCE’s indefinite hunger strike that coincided with the monsoon session of the Assembly, was gaining momentum. Supported by hundreds of parents demanding to enact a law on giving grants to English primary schools, FORCE Convener Savio Lopes had called for this non-violent revolution at Azad Maidan. “Since the assurance had come in writing with a request to end the fast for a peaceful solution, we did so. But the recent development of the government is disappointing,” Lopes told Herald a day after the Select Committee members raised doubt over placing the Bill in the coming Assembly session. Owing to this, the activist has asked the legislators who convinced FORCE on behalf of the government, either step down from their posts or stage a hunger strike. “The CM had enough time to call for a meeting of Select Committee to propose the amendments to the Goa School Education (Amendment) Act. But unfortunately, they hold a meeting two days before the Assembly session begins… It is a known fact that politicians do no honour their own commitment and on the present issue, their assurance was not to FORCE alone but to the whole of Goa,” he added. FORCE will now hold a meeting with the parents to decide their future course of action.