Advisory council on MoI constituted (ToI)

Finally, government forms advisory council on medium of instruction issue TNN | Aug 9, 2013, 03.09 AM IST PANAJI: The government on Thursday finally constituted an 11-member advisory council to advise the government on the vexed issue of the medium of instruction (MoI) at the primary and pre-primary level in Goa. Officially dubbed the 'consultative committee', it will have chief minister Manohar Parrikar, who is also the education minister, as its chairman. The members include ex-principal Madhav Kamat, Suresh Amonkar, Dr Louis Vernal, P R Nadkarni, Dr Celsa Pinto, Fr Zeferino D'Souza, Fr Domnic Savio, Fr M Ataide, Anil Samant and Mahadev Betkikar. Uday Bhembre, who is opposing government grants to English medium schools in Goa, and Savio Lopes, convener of Forum for Rights of Children's Education (FORCE), who is demanding the grants, are special invitees. The education secretary and director of education will also attend the consultative committee meetings as government officials. Sources in the education department said that the date of the first meeting of the committee is yet to be finalized and would be fixed by the chief minister. Parrikar, who is also the education minister had announced the government's intention of constituting the advisory committee on June 24, 2013, but he had assured it would be done by July 2013. Parrikar had also said that the committee would submit its recommendations to the government within three months. It was on May 25, 2011, that the cabinet of the previous Congress government led by Digambar Kamat, approved grants to English medium primary schools in Goa while making Konkani and Marathi compulsory from Class I to Class X. This shift of the previous Congress government from the traditional policy of grants to only regional language primary schools pleased supporters of English in primary schools but angered opponents, who even went to court challenging the state government'sdecision. In December 2012, the BJP government decided to allow 127 schools that converted to English medium to continue with the new MoI in the interest of the students who were already learning, to cope with the change. But the issue has remained unresolved since. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Finally-government-forms-advisory-council-on-medium-of-instruction-issue/articleshow/21719035.cms