On 7th July, Soter wrote the following: I missed this post and hence this delay in reply
Grouse of BBSM brigade and its cheer leaders >"If Kangress wanted English as MOI, they should have spelt it out before the last election in their manifesto. They could do the same in their next manifesto." > "Monseratte as education minister, in answer to a question, stated in the assembly that there will be status quo about MOI." Comment: 1.Could someone throw light as to whether the then Education Minister who overnight denied grants to English medium schools had such a policy spelt out in the manifesto of the PDF or whichever party was in power? Reply: I do not know about what happened under Louis Prot Barbosa but two wrongs do not make a right. 2. If Education Minister went back on his word to the Assembly to maintain status quo on the issue, how does that justify the opposition of grants for English medium primary education? Reply: In a democratic setup, anything said on the floor of the house by a govt minister is meant to be accurate although according to soter, who sounds more and more like Goan version of Digvijay Singh, this might not be the case. 3. How does one reconcile the fact of a quantum jump from around 30 private English medium primary schools in the last decade of the 20th century at the time when local languages got imposed at the primary school level to around 140 new English medium private primary schools in the first 21st Century? 4. How come there has not been a corresponding increase in (non-church) private Konkani / Marathi primary schools in the last 20 years? Reply: Ten percent increase in twenty years in a state where there already over a thousand primary schools does not sound a big number and when the current Marathi and Konkani medium schools are already supported by govt grants and as such opening private schools is unlikely to make good business sense, would it? It would be interesting to know how many of these schools were church run? -Soter D. Now, let me make it clear that I am not a cheerleader for BBSM although I support their aims fully for reasons I have specified on this forum and elsewhere. All I am trying to do is to counter the false propaganda made on this forum and elsewhere. Can Soter now please advise us how come the Kangress govt when submitting the affidavit to the high court in the MOI case forgot over a thousand primary Konkani and Marathi schools and just submitted a false 90% support for English as MOI when this was from the parental choice in just 145 primary schools out of which 130 were church supported or run? Anil Desai
