Goa's education conundrum: English or mothertongue, choice isn't yours
Panaji: After a decade and half of officially pursuing
regional languages as primary school instruction mediums,
Goa's education sector is poised to vote itself back towards
English as the preferred medium.
Starting this academic year, the education department
reintroduced an English language subject from Std I
in government-aided primary schools, where it had
earlier been virtually banned as the medium of
instruction in primary school -- by starving it of
grants -- following an aggressively chauvinistic
language policy of the late 1980s.
This week, the Goa cabinet decided to drop regulations that
barred new schools opening near existing ones -- a move seen
as easing the way for more private English-medium schools to
open.
The opposition BJP has crticised both decisions, accusing the
government of promoting English education at the cost of
regional languages. This will lead to "cultural
degeneration", the BJP said.
Education minister Luizinho Faleiro though has justified the
reintroduction of English in Std I, citing declining
education standards and a 43% school drop out rate across the
ten-years of schooling in Goa.
A majority of students currently go through a scrambled
education system, that leaves them confused and is widely
perceived as flawed. Many study pre-primary in English
medium, then switch to their primary in Konkani/Marathi and
four years later switch again to English at middle and
secondary school.
College and university studies are overwhelmingly, if not
exclusively, in the English medium.
English as a subject was completely dropped in Std I and II
and introduced from Std III onwards. But the long gap and
inadequate exposure to English left many barely able to read
English by Std V, leave alone answer examinations,
educationists point out.
Inability to cope with the switchover is believed tp be one
of the reasons for the 30% drop out rate after Std V,
prodding an advisory board to suggest retaining English as a
subject right through.
On Friday, the opposition BJP indicated it would target Mr
Faleiro, calling for his dismissal. Unless a roll back was
announced, the party has threatened a street agitation.
Sensitive to the emotive language issue. Mr Faleiro -- an
ardent Konkani supporter himself during the 1985-87 language
agitation-- has clarified that the government's pro-regional
language policy is unchanged.
"Education in the mother tongue is still the policy of the
government, and they (regional languages of Konkani and
Marathi) continue to be the medium of instruction," he said.
Retaining English as a subject right through was only a
pragmatic solution, he argued.
However, interference from political lobbies and language
propagandists have for long overshadowed pedagogical concerns
here, creating serious disconnect between government policy
and public demand.
Though backed by government grants, regional language schools
are in decline.
Many of the 1000-odd government primaries in this state of
1.4 million have as few as 12 students to a class. Konkani
medium are seen as an imposition on the masses, in a state
where English is interpreted as the passport to opportunity.
Many regional language propagandists dispatch their own wards
to elite English medium institutions.
Those with the wherewithal to pay and bear the
inconvenience of transporting children over longer
distances, have voted with their feet, only
increasing the demand for English medium schools.
Successive governments have only managed to cap the exodus by
witholding new permissions if an existing school was within
one kilometre and three kilometres for primary and
secondaries respectively.
Education department sources say an average of 60
applications for new English-medium schools were rejected
each year on these grounds and for inadequate infrastructure.
With the cabinet now deciding to drop distance rules, the
opposition has voiced concern that the English mediums would
sprout in a former Portuguese colony, where English education
has been on the rise since the 1940s or earlier, mainly
spurred on by opportunities in outmigration across the globe.
This return of English, they fear, could render existing
infrastructure and teachers surplus. Some 136 schools
teaching in Konkani, most of them run by Christian trusts,
stand to be impacted too.
When education in the mother tongue became a divisive war
cry, Goa's archbishop plumbed for Konkani -- changing
Christian-run English medium to primary schools to Konkani
mediums virtually overnight, though under pressure from the
government, in one of its most contentious decisions that had
sparked street protests from the lay Christian community.
