Goa yet again seems to have defaulted on its promise of implementing a provision of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2005. The state had promised the union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry in February this year that it would integrate Class V with the primary section, but has failed to keep its word.
HRD officials have been pushing for an eight-year elementary cycle for Goa since the last three years – even before the RTE took shape. The eight-year cycle means Class I to V will be classified as primary classes and Class VI to VIII as upper primary. But though Goa has integrated Class VIII as a upper primary class, it has not clubbed Class V with primary.
In a meeting to review implementation of RTE provisions in states in New Delhi in February, Goa officials had told the Centre that an imbroglio over grants for English primary schools along with Konkani/Marathi or English primary schools is on in Goa and that integrating Class V in primary section will worsen the issue.
“Goa will carry out a slow transition in integrating Class V with primary once the medium of instruction issue is resolved,” the Goa education secretary V P Rao had told central government officials, minutes after the February show.
Chief minister Manohar Parrikar has announced continuation of grants to the 127 primary schools who have shifted to English from Konkani/Marathi and therefore the medium of instruction issue stands resolved for now. But there has been no word on the integration of Class V with primary even as 2012-13 is the last academic year for states to implement provisions of the RTE.
Goa has been defiant on notification of the RTE state rules as well, as it is the only other state other than Karnataka to have failed to meet this requirement of the Centre.
The continuous and comprehensive evaluation method implemented by Goa has also been found to be faulty by HRD official Anshu Vaish, who had pointed out that the method followed by Goa was burdensome for teachers and students as it involves too many tests and Goa had been asked to review the system.
Courtesy : TOI
