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When Vandana Rao IAS took over as Director of Education, the journalist fraternity was beaming with relief : The number of circulars being “enjoined upon” school and higher secondary heads went up significantly, and circulars were regularly uploaded on the Directorate of Education (DoE) website. This means that for a journalist, “news” on education is now at our doorstep, instead of having to search for it.
The first time I realised something was awry, was on Gandhi Jayanti, when I was instructed to find out whether schools were actually complying with the circular : The DoE had instructed students to “plog” - jog for 2 km while collecting trash along the way. This was because the PM had launched a “Fit India” movement, to “inculcate physical activity/sports in the daily life of citizens.” Students in Goa had to follow suit, AND prove that they were actually doing it, by uploading photos/videos on a link provided by the DoE.
I hardly thought that any school would not be complying, but since a government holiday meant a slow news day, I decided to find out. Some calls later, I found out to my surprise, that many schools had not made their students “plog”. In fact, they had not troubled their students to come to school on the holiday, but had made them plog for a short while on either October 1 or 3, so that the photos/videos could be sent to the DoE. Subsequently, I learnt that schools’ annoyance was growing with every passing circular, so I was curious to meet Rao herself, and find out if she was aware of the resentment.
“We’ll speak, but
off the record”
It was hard getting head teachers and principals to speak on record. Off the record, many spoke and said they were not happy with the way things were going under Rao, that they were implementing the circulars out of fear, and that the circulars were getting in the way of curricular, extra-curricular and administrative schedules.
When asked to come on record, heads expressed fear that their funds would be cut off, a justified fear, we found out, after officials from the DoE told us the DoE would be “very strict” with schools not complying with the circulars. Some also expressed fear to speak openly in light of the bigger things going on in the country. One city-based principal said it was impossible to make students sit through one hour of the PM’s address on “Pariksha Pe Charcha” every year, as students got restless, there was no interaction just a broadcast, and it’s entirely in Hindi. “It’s like they’re trying to fixate that one face in young minds. In fact, schools on their own have many creative activities planned which are locally relevant, but the DoE is killing our diversity of ideas. The show-causes notices issued to 200-odd heads for not attending a workshop was very disturbing,” the principal said.
A former Goa Board chairman said the problem was the way circulars were worded. “Earlier, circulars issued were related only to education. Now, the way they are worded are diktats, almost on the verge of threats,” he said. But even he was unwilling to be named.
The only person who spoke in favour was a former Director of Education. He expressed that earlier, schools got away with not following directives since they were sent by post. Now there was no excuse since everything was online.
‘Very troublesome work these days’ : A survey
To get a range of views, we circulated an online questionnaire. Even though our survey was “anonymous”, only 15 people responded. Of these, 11 were teachers, and 4 were heads.10 were from HSS, 4 from High School, and 1 from Primary School. 13 belonged to government-aided institutes, and 5 belonged to minority institutes. Respondents were from Arambol, Canacona, Margao, Mapusa, Murmugao, Quepem and Ponda.
When asked which circulars they were made to implement they said :
1) Fit India Movement
2) Constitution Day
3) Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat (EBSB - where Goa is tied up with Jharkhand and students here have to learn about Jharkhand’s culture)
4) Pariksha Pe Charcha
5) Aptitude Testing for Classes 10 and 12
6) Stopping fees collection from students
7) Martyr’s Day
8) Swacchata Pakhwada
9) Compulsory drinking water breaks
We asked how often their institute implemented the circulars. 8 of the 15 said “always”, 2 said “sometimes”, and 5 clicked on: “We make the students start the activity, click pictures/videos to upload, then stop the activity.”
We asked what problems they face to implement the circulars. They said :
1) There’s practically one circular a day. Some give us not even 2-3 days to reply. Show-cause notices are the order of the day but the Director doesn’t realise that most workshops are below standard and sheer waste of time.
2) There’s a fear of being pulled up by DoE. Sometimes, videos/pics don’t get uploaded due to bad network.
3) It affects regular teaching-learning activities as the entire time goes in preparation for the activities.
4) We already plan our activities for the current academic year in March the previous year. Our activities are meaningful which we put a lot of thought, planning and effort into, so our students get a holistic, secular education. Inter-HSS events which come up during the year have to be taken into account. When the DoE enforces endless activities, the standard and beneficial quality of which, I’d rather not comment on, what choice do institutions have?
5) The circular barring managements from taking donations is ridiculous. Aided schools charge Rs 180 as fees for the year. With so little, the school cannot conduct quality activities. The DoE is mum on this! The mandatory water breaks enforced by DoE, especially for primary section, goes out of hand with students regularly asking for toilet breaks. Lack of regular/serious inspections by ADEIs, is why schools don’t take circulars seriously. A wrong picture is given to the DoE (pun intended).
6) Sometimes they simply cannot be implemented.
And lastly, we asked whether they give feedback to the DoE. Most hadn’t. The ones who did said:
1) DoE officials are working on the sword too. They are issued memos and show-cause notices at the whims of the Director.
2) Officials say the Director has sent the circulars. She is a dictator who has no knowledge of education, treats headmasters like dirt and should be thrown out fast. She does not meet anyone and till date never addressed or interacted with the heads.
3) Headmasters are all stressed wondering if our school today is only to respond to circulars or to take care of academics. Very troublesome work these days.
On Record : ‘doe-suggested activities redundant’
There were just two heads who spoke on record : The principal of SS Angle HSS in Canacona - Jairam Gaonkar - and the head of Don Bosco HS in Panjim - Fr Avin Carvalho. Both spoke along similar lines, and the sense I got is that they care deeply about the holistic development of each child in their institution.
Both also expressed that their institution had been carrying out extra-curricular activities long before the DoE started sending the infamous circulars.
Gaonkar, who has served 13 years as school headmaster and 8 years as principal at SS Angle HSS said that 24 years back, he had started a “child profile” where a record is maintained of the child’s accomplishments/progress, which gave the child confidence as they moved ahead. Around 10-12 years back, they started a “human audit” where they analysed the child’s aptitude and skills so they could improve.
“It’s activities like this rather than statistics/proof of pictures constantly sought by the DoE, that helps develop the student,” Gaonkar told me.
Meanwhile, while his HSS has been implementing the circulars, he finds the proposed activities are “more about optics than actually benefiting students, and being qualitative.” He felt the circulars lacked a “student-centric” approach. Same was the case with Don Bosco’s which also complies with all directives, but found some circulars redundant. Incidentally, Carvalho mentioned the same circular as Gaonkar :
“The DoE has sent us a circular on “Fit India Movement,” but our boys have always been into sports. The size of our playground speaks for itself about the priority we give sports,” he said.
When asked about the EBSB club the DoE has directed schools to form, Carvalho joked, “Our school has 8 clubs already, if we form another one, we will be known as Don Bosco Club HS. To incorporate the requirement of the DoE, one of our existing clubs is carrying out the weekly EBSB activities.”
Congress : Bark
without bite?
It’s not like the issue of the deadlock between the DoE and schools has not been raised. The Congress has raised it around five times. In January itself, the party has released 4 press notes : on Jan 8, 14, 18 and 26, pointing out trouble with the Director, and even asked for her transfer way back in September.
The first press note in Jan addressed what the party termed Rao’s “Babugiri”, the second was slamming her for asking teachers to attend Constitution Day celebrations on St Joseph Vaz’s feast (a restricted holiday given by Catholic institutions), and two other press notes alleging that Rao is a “BJP spokesperson.” However, all these were raised by spokespersons of the party, and not once by any of the five MLAs who continue to be with the party, which begs the question: Is the party genuinely concerned about the academic community and education in Goa, or is simply slamming Rao to score political brownie points?
