Will Rs 400 scheme help get more students to Konkani, Marathi primary?
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 26 March 2016 20:19 IST
At this moment, 15,583 students are studying in Konkani, Marathi, Urdu private primary schools in Goa. Will this number go up because government is giving Rs 400 per student to the private school? Or only the established schools would prosper?
Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar has no convincing answer to these questions.
“Now it’s up to the school managements to attract more students and take benefit of this scheme”, he told a press conference today.
While announcing this scheme in the budget to promote primary education in ‘mother tongue,’ he has discarded the old scheme his predecessor Manohar Parrikar had announced in 2012 budget.
The old scheme was to give grants of Rs 12 lakh for the first year and then add Rs one lakh each for the next five years, but only for physical infrastructure like building etc.
“Due to complicated technical formalities, hardly two among the 40 applicants could avail this scheme. That’s why I have proposed this new scheme”, he told the media.
These two schools, Bhatikar Model English High School of Margao and Shanta High School of Siolim would now also get the new scheme besides over Rs 12 lakh of the old scheme.
Parsekar has extended the new scheme to all the 126 aided schools running in Konkani, Marathi, Urdu etc, where 15,583 students are studying.
It would cost the government Rs 6.86 crore while the budget provision is almost Rs 25 crore.
To exhaust the budget, the schools require over 41,000 more students to be enrolled in the existing or new aided primary schools.
Who would benefit from this scheme?
Obviously those who have more students.
And which school will have more students?
Obviously the one which has good infrastructure and teachers.
And which school will have good infrastructure and enough number of teachers?
Obviously the one having enough money to build good infrastructure and attract more students.
And which school will get more money?
Obviously the one having more students enrolled.
It means it would be Herculean task for a new school to build infrastructure and attract students and these schools would not get enough money because they have no enough number of students.
The chief minister does not deny this fact but claims that there are hardly 10 to 15 such schools.
He calculates it on the basis of legal criteria that each class must have minimum 20 students, with which a school would start getting Rs 3.52 lakh every year for total 80 students for 11 months.
But the education department does not deny the fact that they permit private primary schools which get total 20 students for four standards, where they provide only one teacher from Std I to Std IV for total 20 students.
Such schools are already suffering with less number of teachers while the new scheme would not benefit them since they will continue having less number of students, for lack of infrastructure as well as teachers.
In such a situation, will the new scheme succeed in attracting school managements to start new primary schools with Konkani, Marathi or Urdu as its medium?
Parsekar had no convincing reply to this question. He simply leaves it to the school managements…
This proves commitment of Goans towards their children's education. If peoplr cut down their exps on festivities they can have on their own best schools without govt aid. Every village has magnificient temple for the ward deity but govt schools are in delapidated state. Most of these temples serve free food periodically which can go to villagers education. Before liberation when money was scarce there used to be private initiative for their children's education. They did it on micro scale due to paucity of earnings. Those people had commitment.
Paisa fekho .. tamasha dekho....this has been true of Goa and stupid Goans for a long time. The adage 'Money talks' is very true. all these years, goans have voted for people for a meagre 100 rupees and gradually hiked it up to 500 or today, maybe the higher "Tanbdi Note". Unfortunately money has lured the Goan of all kinds. whether he is the common man, the business man, the spiritual man (of all the religions in goa) and finally not forgetting the Political man.
This new dole is being hung like the carrot due to the ensuing elections and moving away from the actual problem plaguing Goa. Goans seriously do not know which language they want to use as the MOI, therefore, a dole like this may lead some establishments to advertise their schools as the best, and don't be surprised to see a marked increase in the enrollments in almost all schools---of course most of these students will be imaginary just like some of the electoral roles- all for greed of the 400 rupees.
VIVA Goenkarra... UTT re Annadea!!!
Anyhow who will benefit is the question, but a flop scheme I think so like the last one.