The decision of the Goa Governor, S.C. Jamir, to implement full day school for students beginning this academic year stating that it will improve the overall development of the student is hasty and unjustified.
Full day schools in other states of India may be acceptable due to the infrastructure in place.
However, the infrastructure and transport situation is chaotic in Goa the present time. The main reason why Goa is among the three most literate states in India, are that in Goa the standard of teaching is high and there are strong bonds between the teachers and students. Why then, do we need to stretch the overall amount of teaching time.
The Governor, before deciding to implement the full day scheme, should have first checked if the teachers are mentally and physically equipped for the task. He should have surveyed the schools to see if they had the infrastructure to carry out full day school. In particular, canteens, toilets, clean drinking water and recreational facilities should have been assessed. We have to also consider the monsoon and heat factors. Would children be able to concentrate in the afternoon heat ? Give our teachers a break, they too are human and need to recharge their batteries as they are working in a very stressful environment.
Since the late sixties, Education in Goa has been going through a metamorphosis witnessed in no other state in India English replacing Portuguese, later on Hindi made compulsory , S.S.C.L. being replaced by the higher secondary
board, the scrapping of English in primary schools (the biggest error, now accounting for high number of school drop-outs), raising the age bar for admission into school and the plans of the dismissed Parrikar government to make major changes in the education pattern after standard eight.
Its to the credit of the teachers and students that they have adapted so well to these changes whilst still keeping Goa among the top three literate states in India. Nevertheless, all these changes may have had some slight detrimental effect on the quality of teaching and the performance of the students, as our literacy levels which were nearly 90% in the 1990
census remain the same even after a period of fifteen years. There has been no explanation for this from our Education Ministers and Politicians as to why we havent yet achieved 100% literacy.
In fact, persuading the Goa Governor to implement full day school could perhaps be the idea of the caterers and retailers, who see this as an golden opportunity to expand their businesses, but can the Governor guarantee the quality of the school mid-day meals ? If developed
countries in
Europe are having to deal with junk mid day school meals , food poisoning, obesity and spread of various diseases most commonly diabetes type 2 not to forget bullying what do we expect from our state government, where worms are even found in drinking
water supplied to homes.
Full day school could be implemented to counter the growing number of coaching classes in our state. I support the coaching classes because some students fall behind or do not fully understand their teachers. Moreover these classes are not free, and if students wish to pay and improve their skills, I dont see why they shouldnt have the advantage of coaching classes, so many have gained by them.
Thank you
Percy Ferrao
