Those opposing English medium of instruction should not be given the
responsibility of developing Konkani
By Nisser Dias
nisserdias at gmail.com
SMS to 9422437029
The week began with tens of thousands parents from all over the state
converging at the historical Azad Maidan to vouch their support for the
movement demanding inclusion of English as medium of instruction. The
sheer number of parents responding to the call given by respective PTAs
of government and aided schools to attend the meeting sent a shiver down
the spine of the government. The message this time around was clear the
parents mean business and if the Congress led coalition government fails
to include English as one of the languages for imparting education from
first standard; it will face yet another debacle in the coming assembly
election. The consequences were realised by the ministers and half the
cabinet including the Education minister Atanasio ‘Babush’ Monserrate
and as many MLAs showed their solidarity with the parents by making
their presence felt at the rally.
However that does not mean that the battle is won, the unity of the
parents is of utmost importance. Though the rally indicated that some of
the ministers who were instrumental in bringing about the lopsided
policy of disbursing grant-in-aid only to those schools instructing in
mother tongue and other regional languages have realised their folly, at
the same time they have also realised the importance and need of
instructing young budding minds in the universal language in this
globalized world.
The church too has realized its error in meekly giving in to the bad
policy of the government two decades ago and is now willing to switch
back to English medium of instruction. One cannot deny the fact that
church is a major stake holder in imparting education in Goa, could have
taken a strong objection to it. But still the church authorities
accepted it maybe for various reasons like patriotism, maybe to give a
chance to see if the Konkanni develops. But in these 20 long years the
mother tongue of Goa has not improved and it has finally dawned on them
that just instructing students in mother tongue till fourth standard
will not help it to grow. If at all Konkanni is to be developed it
should made compulsory from KG to PG. But would there be any takers?
Secondly there are students who have majored in Konkani, has the Goa
government provided them with any special grants or are there any
privileges for them over other languages or has successive governments
of Goa reserved special jobs quotas for them. Has the Konkani
protoganists or chauvinists’ awarded and rewarded such students? Has the
pseudo educationists and those politicians imposing the language on the
young students urged the government to provide incentives to such PG
students who committed themselves to Konkani and completed their post
graduation in the language? And the answer is no. The language
chauvinists’ or Konkani protagonists are interested in deriving
individual benefits from the government like grants and jobs for them
and their family members and also cornering and grabbing awards. The
politicians are interested either in safe guarding or increasing their
vote banks by keeping the population illiterate. If successive
governments could not develop Konkani through graduate and post graduate
students, how will students of standard first to fourth help in the
development of Konkani? Thirdly let the government initiate a survey to
understand how many parents bring up their children in Konkani. The
percentage is very low. So if a child is brought up in English at home,
how is it traumatised when the medium of instruction is English? Infact
the child is distressed when the medium of instruction is in Konkani.
Coming to Marathi, it is not our mother tongue but is infact adopted in
Goa and given equally status because of politicians who would still
prefer to be Maharashtrians rather than Goans and given an opportunity
would still be more than willing to merge it with the neighbouring state
even now. Be that as it may, Marathi is a highly developed language and
I do think any Goan worth his salt has made any worthy contribution to it.
When the parents breaking the barriers of caste, creed and importantly
religion came together and demanded in one voice that English should
also be allowed as medium of instruction for the next academic year, the
politicians and language protagonist were not only rattled but shaken at
their foundation. The politicians have realised that they are losing
their iron grip on the voters as majority of population is hell bent on
educating their children with English as medium of instruction.
Sudin Dhavlikar is one of the ministers in the Digambar Kamat led
government is opposing extending grants to English medium of instruction
even when his son is pursuing his education in English medium school.
But then, can we expect an MGP legislator to support Konkani and more
importantly English when his loyalties lie with Maharashtra and not Goa.
Worse still can we allow a person whose close family members are either
in cahoots or members of fundamentalists organisation like the Sanathan
Saunstha. Can such personalities contribute to education?
Leader of Opposition Manohar Parrikar is another strong believer that
mother tongue should be the medium of instruction at the primary level.
On 22nd March 2011 while speaking on demands of grants, he made a
statement in the assembly that he loves to speak in Konkani; ironically
his Konkani is more spiked with Marathi. How can we forget when he keeps
on reminding us that his primary education was in Marathi? For argument
sake let us assume the choice of his education was made by his parents
because they had a choice. But Parrikar boasts his sons were also
admitted in Marathi primary school, so how can Goans expect Manohar
Parrikar’s love for Konkani. He is also instrumental in starting a daily
newspaper in Marathi. Thus his love for Konkani is superficial. So these
two individuals will never contribute to Konkani and will never allow
the mother tongue or the universal language of the world to be the sole
languages of medium of instruction. The primary motive of such
individuals is to communalise education in Goa and preferably hand over
the entire education sector to the RSS. Of course Parrikar has to first
explain what happened to the government primary school which he had
handed over to the RSS during his tenure as chief minister.
During my interaction with Manohar Parrikar over the issue during the
last Parliamentary election he was categorical enough to state he cannot
allow English to be given grants as majority of Hindus would embrace
English and would not be in the position to read Hindu religious
literature or scripture as it is in Marathi. But this same man who goes
that extra mile to promote himself as a secular did not find it
appropriate to see to it that Konkani in Romi script was given its due
as the entire Christian religious literature or scripture is in Romi script.
Lastly I conclude by saying we are parents of school going children and
we demand that the choice to educate our children in any language should
be ours and for those who are still of the opinion that mother tongue is
the ultimate choice of language for medium of instruction, I say let me
know what your grand children speak and specially in what medium of
instruction they are taught. (ENDS)
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First published in Gomantak Times, Goa - March 24, 2011
