Eduardo hits out at religious pvt. schools

| 05 February 2002 22:26 IST

Alleging that most of the private schools in India follow sectarian religious agenda, Eduardo Faleiro, the Goan MP and convenor of Parliamentary Forum for Education and Culture, has strongly mooted ‘common school system’, prevailing in Scandinavia.

The Rajya Sabha MP has also described 93rd constitutional amendment to create fundamental right to education as unnecessary exercise, while demanding a national law to determine all kind of infrastructural facilities in the government schools.

The Lok Sabha has already passed the amendment during the last session, but yet to come before the Rajya Sabha for discussion. Fundamental right to education up to the age of 14 years already exists as per the Supreme Court ruling and it is also implied in Article 21 of the constitution (right to life), he states.

"Free education means not merely free from tuition fees but also adequate classrooms and teachers, free uniforms, textbooks and other educational material", observes Faleiro. A national law in this regard and its immediately implementation at state level is the need of the hour, he adds.

Though private schools provide the best infrastructural facilities, Faleiro feels that their sectarian orientation due to ownership by religious institutions tend to create a divide within the Indian society. "I am not taking any names. Everybody knows it", he quips.

On the other hand, opines Faleiro, that the government schools are suffering in spite of having dedicated teachers, due to poor infrastructural facilities. Though Goa stands third after Kerala and Mizoram in the country in educational sphere, he feels the government schools here are a neglected lot.

Citing example of his own Raia village near Margao where he studied 50 years ago, Faleiro informs that the government school there runs eight classes in one classroom with total 42 students whereas the neighbouring private school has 50 students in each class.

The convenor of the Parliamentary forum also admits that commercialisation of education has resulted into privatisation of education when actually human resources like education, health etc should be exclusively provided by the state.

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