From Our Special correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
 
Panaji, Jun 5: The Manohar Parrikar government has announced that the schools teaching elementary education in regional languages would be given grant-in-aid by the education department, while those in English will not enjoy the same.

The government, however, has allowed 100-odd schools which had changed their medium from Konkani or Marathi to English during last academic year to enjoy the benefit of grant in aid.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said that  the decision not to withhold the grants for the schools who had changed their medium to English last year was taken considering the fate of 25,000 students who were studying there.

“If government decides to abruptly discontinue existing grants to such schools then large number of students studying therein may get seriously affected without any fault of their own,” Parrikar said.

The state government has, however, cleared air over medium of instruction controversy, stating that Marathi and Konkani medium schools would be given grants, and also encouragement.

Announcing Rs 12 lakh one time grant for the new primary schools in Konkani and Marathi, Parrikar said that these schools will also be given annual grant of Rs one lakh for next five years.

The government has also announced additional sops like maintenance grant, salary grant for non teaching staff and also an additional teacher for teaching English in these schools.

Parrikar said that around 250 additional teachers in government run schools and 200 in the private schools would be employed on a regular basis.

Chief minister admitted that the situation of government run schools is not encouraging. “There are 500 schools with less then 30 students in all the four classes together,” he said, adding that the criteria of keeping certain distance would be relaxed if new schools in Marathi and Konkani languages are being started.

The government has also decided to form a committee of educationists, who will study the future of primary education in Goa and submit its report within a year.