Goa DoE circulars : Parents see little

The circulars issue by the Directorate of Education(DoE) to both aided as well as unaided schools, have a had a mixed response from parents and citizens of the  state. Some parents felt that the guidelines issued to aided schools about favoring students nearer to the school as compared with students staying farther away, were already being followed and there was nothing new added to benefit the aggrieved parents.

Some parents feel that making only distance as the criteria would erode and neglect the merit for the purpose. Also if a particular village or city area has a sub-standard school, the parents would be compelled to admit their children is such schools at the cost of quality education in schools farther from their residence. This would therefore mean that the residents of rural areas would not be able to send their wards to good urban schools which are considered to be having  a better quality of education.

Also such a move, would lure parents in rural areas to re-locate their residence to urban areas in quest of complying with the new regulations of being in close proximity to the schools of admission. Some other parents and members of government aided schools lamented that neither the managements nor the parents were consulted while making such an important decision by the DoE.

The fears  were that there was no proper assessment or study over the new guidelines nor any thought towards the number of documents required to be furnished to calculate the points accruing to each candidate as per the new guidelines.

Some other parents felt that the move is only aimed at filling up the sub-standard schools in the villages whose enrolment is on a steady decline. Some parents of students in unaided schools were of the opinion that the donation issue of such schools has strangely not been touched by the DoE and pointed it out to be the evil in the system of admission in such schools.

Also parents are unhappy that the perennial problem of the medium of instruction has been left untouched. Parents aver that they are discouraged from admitting their children to the aided schools on account of the medium of instruction which is the vernacular language of Konkani or Marathi upto the fourth standard. Parents feel that the medium of instruction is the major problem and not the distance of the school.