New Higher Secondary schools
No communal
angle: Church
ABE says it has no right to call MLAs of other faiths
What the ABE said...
We have called the Catholic MLAs because they are the members of our community. Is there anything wrong here if we wanted to share our concerns with them?
We had invited them in the past, more than once, to spend some time together. In fact they had felt that we need to come together more often
The ABE has certain issues pending with the Government... permissions for all the schools applied for are situated in remote areas and not in the cities.
We followed the required process and exhausted all possible means to obtain the required permissions
PANAJI: The Archdiocesan Board of Education, which called the meeting of all Catholic MLAs has said it had no right to call all MLAs and hence didn't call them, even as it denied communalising the issue.
In a statement released, Sr Annie Paul the Secretary to the Archdiocesan Board of Education has said that they only approached the MLAs after they exhausted all other options.
"We have no right to call all the MLAs or MLAs of the other communities. We have called the Catholic MLAs because they are the members of our community. Is there anything wrong here if we wanted to share our concerns with them?" she asked adding that it is not the first time that the ABE invited Catholic MLAs.
We had invited them in the past, more than once, to spend some time together. In fact they had felt that we need to come together more often.
"The ABE has certain issues pending with the Government, inter alia, permissions to open new Higher Secondary Schools, Primary School, Secondary School, etc. All the schools applied for are situated in remote areas and not in the cities. We followed the required process and exhausted all possible means to obtain the required permissions," she added.
However, she said that all the schools reopened, even after the postponed date, on 8th June, 2015, and the parents, all confused and concerned, started pressurizing us.
"Hence we decided to invite the Catholic MLAs just to share our concerns with them," she said.
"In all our ABE educational institutions we are catering to the students, more than 50% and even sometimes 75% and in some schools 95%, of other communities, including the majority community. If our interest and concern is purely educational and to cater to the students of majority community and all other communities, without any considerations, then how we can be labeled as promoting communalism?" she asked.
The Archdiocesan Board of Education created a controversy after it summoned all Catholic MLAs to take up issues of permissions to be granted to open new Higher Secondaries as well as additional classes in schools which were denied by the government.
