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The Medium of Instruction Saga The Goan, Jul 20, 2015 Pamela D'Mello Four years after parents came out onto the streets to press the government to extend grants in aid to English medium primary schools, the Forum for Rights of Children to Education (FORCE) leadership is once again taking to the streets. Announcing a “do or die” hunger strike by its secretary Savio Lopes to commence on July 27, the start of the monsoon session of the Goa Assembly --- FORCE this time is demanding that government embed its MOI policy of grants for English medium schools into the Education Act and Rules. Lopes categorically says FORCE does not trust any government and politicians in particular, who have played “dirty politics” with the lives of children for way too long in Goa. The organisation, after a series of meetings, is demanding that the government translate the July 1, 2014 cabinet decision into an undiluted Act, that will protect the rights of English medium schools to grants in aid from the government. Embedding the policy in an Act will protect children studying in such schools from the uncertainty of political maneuvers, the vagaries of political parties and policies that could change overnight, says FORCE. Agitating since 2011, FORCE says it has now run out of patience and is determined to conclude the struggle for its demand. Ever since the Shashikala Kakodkar education ministry in 1991, took a blatantly discriminatory decision to deny English medium primaries a grant in aid, the issue has traumatised two generations of children and their parents. Ostensibly to promote regional languages, the 1991 decision was made palatable by a clause saying no new permissions would be granted to set up English schools. After a misguided Church decision (ignoring parent protests at the time) to adopt Konkani as a medium of instruction, lakhs of students went through the pedagogical disaster of oscillating between English and Konkani and English from nursery to high school, wasting four crucial formative years and impeding their academic performance and careers at the altar of bigotry. Those who could afford higher fees, shifted in droves to the 139 new private non government aided English schools that sprang up to meet the growing demand for an English education, both from local families and the increasingly cosmopolitan population moving to Goa. Lopes has a point when he says that the influential right wing groups/individuals that agitated to oppose grants to English, make no protest at private English schools. In fact many send their children and grandchildren to these schools, while hypocritically advocating a vernacular education for others. Many feel that the Archdiocese run schools are targeted for discrimination, as seen in their demands to increase divisions this year being turned down. Academics have since convincingly argued that the 'education in the mother tongue' argument that has been peddled for too long in Goa, has long lost its credibility. This, because the state's disastrous experiment with the Konkani vernacular had become the insidious vehicle for the imposition of the dominant upper caste Antruzi dialect and the Devanagari script, even while real mother tongue dialects for some and the Romi script, native to a large section --- were scorned in the pursuit of 'uniformity'. The pervasive use of English in higher education, employment and administration --- makes it an aspirational vehicle for millions of Goans and Indians. That is a given, though many states, attempting to stem the tide and preserve regional languages, are using state aid as a block. In Goa, the exodus from regional government primaries is sought to be stemmed by preventing new divisions in English mediums. This of course impacts the poorest the most, especially at a time when an education – and an English education at that --- offers possible avenues to improve one's lot in an industrialising economy, where no such upward mobility was possible in the rigid caste-ridden feudal agrarian economies that it dismantles. Can there be a synergy between the language of aspiration and the language of culture? Purists may disagree, but people are multilingual and have adapted to multiple usages of both – English and the vernacular. Never is this more evident than with cultural products like the tiatr, that thrive and could scale further heights. Audio and video cultural products in Konkani have shown tremendous latent yet-to-be-fully-tapped potential to grow, in television and Internet, bypassing the obsession with script/dialect uniformity that purists and litterateurs in the language movement hanker for. Die hard English-as-MOI protagonists are equally die-hard Konkani mogis in the cultural space, creating both a growing market and a possible avenue. If this is acknowledged there would be more cause for unity than division. The contribution of the `minority' Catholic community in Goa to creating Konkani cultural products in books, newspapers, theatre, magazines and music, needs no tabulation. Yet the medium of instruction imbroglio was given a deliberate communal twist right through. The Congress government's MOI policy was far more open, offering a choice to parents and schools, across the board, to opt for aided English education or regional languages as per their wish. The BJP government's policy in contrast, created the category of 'minority institutions' to single them out with respect to the MOI, increasing the scope for polarisation according to some. Politically, analysts suggest the BJP gained a government in 2012, in part based on its singular opposition and strategising with opponents of English MOI in the BBSM. Successfully blocking the Congress from solving the issue before the 2012 assembly polls, certainly paid off. Former Congress President Subhash Shirodkar is on record blaming closet RSS functionaries in the education administration for influencing matters at the time. In the manner of such things, some BBSM functionaries found themselves in government chairmanships with the current dispensation and other appointments were attempted. Also in the manner of such things in politics, the BJP government continued the much-maligned decision of the Congress to give grant in aid to the English MOI schools. FORCE justifiably wants this formalised and cast into an Act, not just a policy that could waver with time and elections and governments. It says it has lost patience with the deliberate delaying tactics of the present government and attempts to dilute the agreement reached --- thereby keeping parents uncertain, to be used as a vote bank before the next election comes up. The battle-lines have been drawn yet again in this long saga.(ends) -- Pamela D'Mello http://pameladmello.wordpress.com http://goadecode.wordpress.com
