THOSE OPPOSING ENGLISH MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN RESPONSIBILITY OF DEVELOPING KONKANI By Nisser Dias

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.