Dear Albert, >From your post, I get the impression that in your opinion the aims of primary >education are: (1) to prepare the child for outsourced jobs which require >smart persons fluent in English and nothing else, (2) to prepare the child for >settling abroad because Goa cannot provide him/her with a job opportunity. The child that enters the First standard in June 2011, will graduate and enter the job market in 1926. Will the outsourced jobs be still available then? And how many of them? And what will the rest of them do? Emigrate? Will there be openings for them in foreign countries? Even today we find the doors being closed to expatriates and vigillante groups targetting such settlers, even students. In the Arabian Gulf the locals are already demanding employment; and this might lead to an exodus of expatriates in the near future. This being the case, we must prepare to provide for our brothers who might be forced to pack bag and baggage. For the last hundred years and more Goans have migrated and settled abroad. And the vacuum was filled by people from other states of India who took up the newly-created jobs and prospered to occupy a sizeable area of land and resources. Today, when the "prodigals" or their progeny return to their "roots", they find that all their land and properties have been usurped; they blame those who stayed put and lived with whatever was available, as if it was the duty of these to protect their interests while they made hay abroad. Should we continue to create conditions conducive to outmigration of Goans? Considering these facts, I would say that your aims are very short-sighted. What makes you say that Primary education in English per se makes a child smart? You ask: <<If the English teachers themselves have to waste time teaching students a new subjects then where is there a time to make them speak, write and understand English?>> What, according to you, is the function of a teacher if to teach it is not? If the teacher does not teach the subject assigned to her, who should teach it. And what is meant by teaching? Does it include ensuring that the child has at least understood the topic? Is memorization word for word of whatever the teacher has dictated all that is meant by learning? How far will this type of "learning" take the child? By "English teacher" do you mean the one who teaches the English language? This teacher should not dabble in other subjects. But she should concentrate on the child's grammar, comprehension and expression; and this should be done through graded exercises which are necessarily corrected by this teacher. The student will then be empowered to acquire knowledge from other sources as well -- this being the true goal of school education. Weeding out Marathi teachers (as you suggest) is not the solution. It is the exclusively English-speaking subject teachers (especially at stds. V, VI and VII) who need to be weeded out. They are a burden on the system as they promote rote learning; many a time, they themselves do not understand the subject matter they are supposed to be teaching. If drafting circulars is a criterion, I have come across English-educated students in College who could not write a simple application to the Principal. So this is not the exclusive preserve of Marathi students alone. Hope I have my point clear.
Sebastian Borges On 9 Apr 2011 Albert Desouza <[email protected]> wrote: << Goa cannot provide job opportunity to you. So one needs to move out of Goa for a job. Today lots of foreign companies have outsourcing .One prefers a smart person in their establishment . Most of the companies use English as a medium for transactions. Most of the students coming from Marathi or konkani medium lack the ability to understand English and to speak it out clearly. If the English teachers themselves have to waste time teaching students a new subjects then where is there a time to make them speak, write and understand English? Today many want to settle abroad. When one goes to US they will not appreciate our degrees and so you are rejected. Then if you are given a test you tend to fail. If you have a job in a call centre one must be able to talk in English and hindi clearly. So a firm basic English background will go a long way. Take for example of people in Austria, Italy, Switzland, Germany. The medium is German. All the three countries use German and Itlay uses I think German and Italian. But these countries are self sufficient as far as jobs are concerned and so the students studying over here can get a job without English because most of the transactions are done in German.I hope I am clear. We need not only English Medium of Instructions but we need to modernise our teaching system. We should weed out marathi speaking fanatics from the educational system . Many people working in the Government educational department cannot draft a simple circular. They first write it in Marathi and then translate it in English. Many times they themselves cannot read what they have written. albert Sebastian Borges
