the goan I network
PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has promised to steer his government into stimulating a revolution in a number of areas including education so that benefits of governance reach the last individual in society.
“I have consciously retained the Education portfolio and all related departments under my charge. Over the next three years I want to introduce changes in the way the ministry works and delivers to change the education system,” Sawant said while exchanging his thoughts with the editorial team of The Goan and sister publications.
Sawant officiated as Guest Editor on Monday for the 4th Anniversary edition of The Goan and said he was committed to achieve the late Manohar Parrikar’s dream of a ‘Golden Goa’.
The chief minister also said he had instructed officials of the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to work on restructuring its courses and streams of education, particularly the vocational stream, over the next one year.
“I have instructed that courses that have no upward mobility or employment potential should be eliminated before the next academic year commences,” Sawant said, adding that vocational courses like nursing and agriculture in the higher secondary vocational stream were leaving students who opt for them in a ‘dead-end’ situation with no upward mobility.
Sawant also said his government’s priority and focus would be to resolve the 3M’s confronting Goa -- Mopa, Mining and Mhadei.
“I would not like to expose our strategy at this stage but we have some options before us which we are working on to restart mining. I even raised the issue at the Niti Aayog meeting in Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a specific reference that
mining closure was affecting Goa’s economic growth,” Sawant said, adding that resolution of the imbroglio is a handshaking distance away.
The chief minister said there were enough avenues in Goa for gainful engagement of the youth and there was no reason why anyone should be unemployed. “True, it’s not possible to provide everybody with a government job but there was scope for employment. We are also engaging and in talks with the private sector related to the job scenario,” Sawant said, adding that although these may not be ‘confirmed’ jobs they will be an avenue to build careers for the youth. |
Babus must shed ‘job for salary’ attitude: CM
PANAJI: In a stern message to the bureaucracy and lower hierarchy, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said, the government servants will have to shed their attitude of working for their salaries and instead focus on the State’s interests and achieving targets.
Sawant said he will not hesitate to crack the whip against erring and inefficient staff and instructions have already been issued to them.
“Government employees should understand that they are servants of the public. Work of the people should not be hampered or delayed because of their attitude. I have already sent out instructions that complaints from the public of obstructionist or corrupt attitude will not be tolerated,” Sawant said.
The CM also said that he held a specific meeting with senior Secretary-level bureaucrats where he urged them to be proactive over the next six months in drawing up strategies to attract maximum funding from the Centre under the latter’s existing schemes and programmes.
