Much as I admire Adv. Jos Peter's skills as a lawyer and also his ease
and facility with the English language, I beg to differ with the
solution to the MOI imbroglio advocated by him.
I say, let us get down to ground realities. I agree with the basic
premise that education in the mother tongue is the best for primary
education, but differ on the question of starting written English only
in the upper primary i.e. std V simply because in that class the
students are expected to learn math and environmental studies (viz
history, geography and science) as it is now termed in the MOI meaning
English. How do you expect the students to cope with this if they are
only beginning to learn to read and write the (English) alphabet? This
is the problem that is besetting our schools today.
The issue here is that the medium of instruction has been linked with
grants. Why deny schools whose MOI is other than Konkani/ Marathi?
It was decided and settled that Goa has become a state on the basis of
the fact that Konkani is the Mother Tongue of the Goans and not any
other hence Konkani has been made the State language. Marathi has merely
been permitted to be be used for any official purpose. This does not
make it also the official language of the state of Goa. If Marathi were
a official language of the state then there was no need for a state of
Goa and it should have been a part of Maharashtra. The Opinion Poll -
Historic or otherwise - has settled that once and for all time. That
being the case, what is the logic behind giving Marathi medium schools
grants? The same logic ought to apply to English medium schools. I have
personally studied in English medium schools all my life. I do not think
that my education has suffered in any way, which is much more than I can
say of many people who have done their elementary studies in their
mother tongue.
Germany, Russia, France and Japan have been cited as examples of
countries whose children study in the mother tongue. But there is a
difference. In these countries, one does not need the English language
in the sense that one can study right from KG to Ph D in their own
tongue. Is that possible in Konkani (in any other subject barring
Konkani itself perhaps)? If we want to do that there will have to be
much much work in the field of vocabulary building and language
development. I think it was Pascal who said,"you cannot develop science
without developing language and language without developing science"
The educational venture that he briefly mentions in his article was
called "Happy Learners" and it was started if I am not mistaken by a
group consisting of Claude Alvares, Jos Peter D'Souza, Alexyz, and
others. While the concept was educationally very sound unfortunately it
had not many takers because at the end of the day, these students had to
integrate with the mainstream students at some point in time. This is
where the rub lay.
Parents expect their wards to pursue a career. Parents feel that English
is the language that is the destiny of their wards. Parents are tax
payers. Grants are funded by tax paid by parents. Why deny parents what
they want?
--
Tony de Sa. tonydesa at gmail dot com
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