During the Portuguese regime, only bhattkars' children and those who owned a piece of land with a house in it could go to school. If tenants sent their children to school they were punished and their children were made to work in their properties as slaves!
Post Liberation, everyone got an opportunity to go to school. Today, children pass their Xth Std. by the age of 15/16, complete their college by the age of 20/21, and they either pursue further studies or get employed by the age of 21/22. In the early/mid 1960's, many SSC students were either in their late teens or early twenties and some even in their mid twenties. This was so, because they did not get an opportunity to join school earlier during the Portuguese regime. Many football players of the 1960's from St. Anthony's High School, Monte de Guirim, or St. Joseph High School, Arpora, etc., though in their twenties were still in the IXth or Xth Std! Some of us still live in fools' paradise and think that the Portuguese should have remained in Goa or that the Indian government should not have marched in with a huge army and liberated Goa. Being liberated does not mean getting everything on a platter. Today, if things are going wrong in Goa, it is because we have failed in our action and participation. There is no use crying over spilled milk; instead, we must mend our ways, work hard and continue to march forward. One of the best things that has happened in post-liberated Goa is education. Do you think Goans would have achieved the present day literacy rate if the Portuguese had continued to rule Goa? Moi-mogan, Domnic Fernandes Anjuna/Dhahran, KSA >From : D'Souza, Avelino <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent : Wednesday, January 18, 2006 7:39 AM Goa tops enrollment in rural schools 18 Jan 2006 - UNI New Delhi, Jan 17: Goa has beaten the 100 per cent literate Kerala to record the lowest number of children out of school in villages. Only 0.3 per cent of all children in the tiny coastal state do not go to school compared to 1.6 per cent of Kerala's, says a new national survey.
