THE NEW MOI POLICY WILL BE IMPLEMENTED NEXT WEEK BY THE GOVERNMENT

PANJIM: The new medium of instruction (MoI) policy that provides government grants to English medium primary schools will be implemented next week. This was decided at a meeting on Friday between chief minister Digambar Kamat, education minister Atanasio 'Babush' Monserrate and members of the monitoring committee for implementing the policy. The meeting deliberated on the queries raised by the committee.

Monserrate said the government cleared all the committee's doubts on the policy. "We have cleared all the queries raised by the monitoring committee for implementing the MoI policy. Now the monitoring committee report need not go to the cabinet for approval," Monserrate said.

The minister stated they have also asked the monitoring committee to draft a detailed report of Friday's meeting. "All the hurdles will be cleared and by the end of next week we will begin the implementation process. Implementation in government primary schools will be delayed," Monserrate said.

The government also decided to recruit trained teachers for government primary schools to strengthen English in these schools. "Initially we will recruit 350 BEd and DEd teachers on contract basis with a salary of. `15,000 per month. Later their services will be regularized," Monserrate said.

He also said they discussed the issue of text book supply to schools and that the education director has assured them that all text books will be available by mid-August.