"No one can deny the importance of learning English in a fast changing world, but what is damnable is the ease with which we forget our roots....... Do we want Konkani? ....... By trying to treat Marathi and Konkani on the same footing, English is gaining ground and Maharashtrians get the jobs." Says Dr. Rev. Mathew Almeida of Panaji, Goa in his exhaustive and painstaking article titled Internet Article "Konkani Education - The present condition and future prospects" to be presented at the forthcoming Millennium Konkani Sammelan at Chicago, USA on 2-4 July,2000. This paper has been condensed by Radhakrishna Kalawar to enable appreciate the immediate need to accord priority on upliftment of Konkani Culture, traditions and economic well-being of the masses. This version is a faithful reproduction of the original except for the bold highlighting of some of the sentences.

The presentation can be expected to throw challenges as to whether we should be proud to identify ourselves as Konkanis first and if so, what should be done? With stalwarts like Nandan Nilekani, Vijay Mallya, Pais, Dempos, Salgaokars and a host of elite Konkanis, it is high time to sit together and deliberate on setting up an Interfaith oriented Education-cum-Health Infrastructure that would form the foundation for an integrated progressive future for the millennium generations. An appropriate location would perhaps be the picturesque southern tip of Goa around the banks of Kalinadi and its tributaries.

"Arbeanchea desant khazur piktana kavlleachea tonddak runvam zai'lim khoim". (They say, when in Arabia dates were ripening the crow had sores on its mouth.) This is the state of Konkani education. Time was when in Goa people were forbidden to talk Konkani, and elsewhere they had no means of teaching Konkani, but now when all the facilities to learn Konkani are available the Konkani people have no taste for their own mother tongue. The 3 States of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala will be considered rather briefly. The State of Goa will be given a detailed treatment as Konkani is the official language here.

1. Maharashtra: Old Konkani settlers are found in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg areas of Konkan and the southern part of Kolhapur District of Maharashtra. In the rest of the state Konkani speakers are rather recent settlers or a floating population of job seekers. Konkani does not find any place except as a language spoken at home or among friends. Maybe, the two Kannada script dailies being published from Bombay mean that Konkani education is not totally neglected in this state.
2. Karnataka: A great number of people in this state speak Konkani and use it in oral and written communication. Recently when the mother tongue was made compulsory as the medium of instruction by the state government, Konkani people seem to be waking up to the possibility of teaching Konkani in schools. The moment you think of teaching Konkani in Karnataka you have to face the ticklish problem of choosing the script to teach it in. Every child in this state willy-nilly has to learn Kannada. Kannada characters are an Indian writing system even older than Devanagari itself, and have been used for writing Konkani for centuries even in Goa.
3. Kerala: The Konkani population of Kerala is rather small, but they are very enthusiastic in maintaining their identity. It must be mentioned to the credit of Kerala Konkanis that they generously embraced Devanagri script, and have produced Konkani literature in that script.
4. Goa: Strictly speaking, the subject of this paper should have been concentrated on Goa itself because it is the only Konkani state with Konkani as its official language, and where over 95% of the people speak Konkani as mother tongue or as adopted language. When the new State of Goa declared Konkani written in the Devanagari script to be the official language, Konkani could be said to have come into its own, and Konkani lovers must have dreamt of a golden age of Konkani. Margao has honor of having the very first Konkani school. According to Jesuit historian J. Velinkar (1988:71-72), the Jesuits built the Holy Spirit College in 1574. Suppression of Konkani by law must have been quite effective, because when in recent colonial times Marathi schools were established in Goa by the Portuguese government no effort was made to start any Konkani schools. In the last thirty years Konkani education has slowly made some progress in Goa. Children can now learn Konkani from Std I to XII as a language at school. Konkani medium is available only in the first four classes. Nursery and KG classes of their very nature should be conducted in the mother tongue of the child. Unfortunately, in the urban areas of Goa they are turned into formal and unimaginative classes to force the tiny children to write the English alphabet endlessly and to memorize meaningless nursery rhymes in an alien language. Even after introducing Konkani medium in all the Diocesan schools, the convent schools continue to run English nursery and KG classes. In the rural areas of Goa there is a system of Anganwadies, but the miserably underpaid semiliterate girls running them could hardly be expected to give much of a Konkani orientation, because most of them have done only a little schooling in Marathi medium primary schools. In 1990 under pressure the government of Goa decided to give grants to primary schools which opted to impart education through the medium of Konkani or any other Indian language. All the primary schools managed by the Archdiocesan Board opted for Konkani as a matter of policy, and a few other private schools and some government schools joined them in introducing Konkani as the medium of instruction. A wrong impression might have been created that from 1991 all the primary schools in Goa have changed over to Konkani medium. This is far from the truth; statistics for the academic year 1994-1995 prepared by Dr Pratap Naik give a different picture: '... there are 13 English Medium private primary schools, 240 Konkani medium primary schools (107 Government and 34 private) and 1028 Marathi medium primary schools (994 Government and 34 private). This means 80.25% Marathi medium, 18.75% Konkani medium, and 1% English medium primary schools exist in Goa. In 13 English medium primary schools, there are 10,793 students, with a ratio of 830 students per school. In 240 Konkani medium primary schools, there are 29,288 students, with a ratio of 122 students per school. In 1028 Marathi medium schools, there are 55,122 students, with a ratio of 54 students per school.' Even these statistics cannot give a correct picture because even the 240 so-called Konkani medium schools do not teach in Konkani. Many of them teach in English and teach Konkani as a subject, a few of them teach Maths in English and the other subjects in Konkani, and only a few schools have taken Konkani medium seriously and are making a gallant effort to implement it as best as they can. After trying out the new system this last group have found that the students profit immensely because they understand everything and their grasp of different subjects is greatly speeded up. The illogic and inconsistency of the Devanagari spelling system is another problem faced by Konkani medium. So also an inordinate insistence on using the Marathi system of writing numbers is another obstacle. Enlightened languages like Hindi, Kannada and Tamil have already implemented the Central Government directive to make use of the international number system, but Konkani, a new comer on the scene, has blundered by holding on to the old system which creates problems to small children when they come to learn Maths in Std V, where they have to change over to international numbers.

By far the greatest hindrance to Konkani medium is the anxiety of parents that their children would not be able to cope up with English in Std V if they do not begin English right from the start. If this trend continues then there is hardly any hope of maintaining the existing Konkani primary schools, and if the government gives grants to the English medium primary schools, the whole experiment of Konkani medium is bound to come to an abrupt end. Those who take Konkani from Std V to XII are hardly motivated by a love for the language. Many take it as a lesser evil because they find other languages more difficult to learn. Those interested in better marks would rather take French or even Sanskrit. Often, Konkani is taught by Hindi or Marathi teachers, who do not know Konkani well enough, just because they are more familiar with Devanagari.

All in all, because of the weak-kneed policy of the government yielding to Marathi pressure it is possible to do all the 12 years of schooling in Goa without taking Konkani, the state language, even as a subject. Konkani as the official language of the state should have been made compulsory for all right through school at least as a subject. Since Konkani is not made the sole required language for local jobs Maharashtrians get preference over Goans in securing both local and central government jobs in Goa.

When ten years ago immediate preparations for starting the Goa University were afoot, they were contemplating only a chair of Konkani. With the constant pressure of some educationists and Konkani enthusiasts a department of Konkani was gradually formed in spite of various difficulties and deficiencies, the principal among them being a lack of properly trained staff. The greatest misfortune of Konkani is that this university has turned out to be an affiliating, exam-centred one and thus ended up as a poor copy of the old University of Bombay minus its prestige. The dream of developing a small innovative and residential institution, where student-centred courses demanding guided self-study are offered and which are internally evaluated and monitored, was shattered by politics and lack of vision. Consequently Konkani was the first loser because in any state the local language gets the pride of place, whereas here it is reduced to the state of an orphan in the matter of allocating facilities and funds for development.

Problems faced by Konkani education

1. Attitudes: Our own lack of love of our language and culture is the major hurdle. A servile attitude or a carry over from the colonial mentality is evident the way we have shifted from Portuguese to English. No one can deny the importance of learning English in a fast changing world, but what is damnable is the ease with which we forget Konkani and our roots. The lack of commitment of our people is obvious from the way one section of the people hold on to Marathi and another section go after English. Do we want Konkani? Are we really concerned that our culture cannot long survive without our language? If the answer to these two questions is a resounding yes, then no hindrance would stop us from deepening our knowledge of our mother tongue and teaching it to our children. If a shaky government were to change its policy and give grants to English primary schools, would we just forget Konkani and embrace English? That would be a sure test of our commitment. Brave talk at conventions will mean little if we have no convictions of our own. Let us face it, Konkani will survive only if we want it.
2. Government policy: One would think that at least in Goa, Konkani should thrive with government backing because it is the official language of the state. Trying to appease the Marathi lobby they have simply neutralized the very State Language Act, and have made Konkani a stranger in her own house. The minimum they could have done is to make Konkani a compulsory subject throughout the state for all children right through school and make the knowledge of konknai compulsory for all job seekers in Goa. All the states follow this type of policy regarding their state language in order to safeguard the rights of the local people. By trying to treat Konkani and Marathi on the same footing, English is gaining ground and Maharashtrians get the jobs.
3. Standardization: By the very fact that a language is used by a larger group for communication and for education, standardization of it becomes inevitable for the purpose of mutual intelligibility and accuracy of expression. The old system of standardization by adapting to the dialect of a superior group is altogether unacceptable today. As a matter of fact the queer divisions in Goa in the matter of Marathi are an aftermath of the caste superiority of a particular group, which was perceived by the majority as once again trying to gain the upper hand in the name of Konkani. We should not be narrow-minded and insist on one or the other dialect should have a privileged position. A readiness to give and take, appreciation of good features found in other dialects, and openness to innovate are necessary in attempting standardization. Thus pronunciations, grammatical structures, vocabulary items, idioms and expressions which are more in keeping with the basic structure of Konkani should be preferred rather than the usage found in one's own dialect. Usage found in existing Konkani literature which are found to be successful in communication, should be preserved. The uneasy feeling of strangeness about usage from other dialects can be overcome by constant use of the new forms. On the whole, we should not force a standard but help the evolution of a standard by cooperating with the efforts made to evolve it.
4. Textbooks: Good textbooks developed along sound linguistic and pedagogical principles are a great need at every stage of Konkani education. Most of the existing textbooks have been prepared hurriedly and haphazardly, without proper grading and concrete objectives. A clear distinction of objectives for language textbooks and literature textbooks is missing in most of them. Language textbooks cannot be a series of short items of literature selected at random; teaching of language structures, language skills and usage of language are far more important here. When preparing anthologies of literary pieces for a literature textbook, however, care should be taken to give a wider sampling of literature without restricting the choice to a particular script.
5. Other educational helps: Konkani teachers and students still require some of the basic helps to teaching and learning of Konkani language and literature. A few dictionaries have come out recently, but they are not adequate for the varied needs of learners. Most of the dictionaries are quite deficient in giving even the most basic information. Konkani grammars for different groups of learners have to be prepared. Technical terminology for the different disciplines has to be given a certain priority if we want to widen Konkani education. Other reference works in Konkani have still to be produced.

Prospects of Konkani Education

1. English trend: Families that staunchly held on to Konkani even during the Portuguese period are today moving towards English either as a status language or as a language of advantage. Because of the ascendance of English education, gradually families are abandoning Konkani even at home. This trend which started fifty years ago in Bombay and Pune, has already spread to Goa and it is already gaining ground even in Kanara. If this trend continues there is certainly no scope for Konkani education. If that happens the Konkani will have to be studied as we study Old and Middle English just as an academic subject at the university. If the Goa government does not make the knowledge of Konkani the sole language requirement for employment in this state, and introduce Konkani as a compulsory subject at every stage of school education, prospects are bleak indeed.
2. Devanagari Script: The prospect of having every Konkani speaker adopting Devanagari script is too good to be realised in the foreseeable future. For the Konkanis in Karnataka to give up Kannada script in favour of Devanagari straightaway, would be like: Ghov novem Kapodd haddtolo mhonn, pomem kapodd randhnint uddoun bail nhanvk gel'il khoim. (Thinking that her husband would get a new saree, the wife threw her old saree to the fire as she went in for her bath.) As things stand, if a book released in Kannada script can hope to get a couple of thousand buyers, a book in Devanagari can hardly expect a couple of hundred buyers. If they want to switch scripts they should have a well planned scheme of teaching Konkani in Devanagari script to children, which should include graded children's literature and other helps. You have to attract them to Devanagari and not force it on them.
3. Konkani medium of education: Konkani medium of primary education in Goa cannot yet be considered a successful experiment. No doubt children who are already in it benefit a lot, especially the rural children do. In order to make this gain permanent four years of primary education is hardly sufficient. If all the seven years of primary education was given through the medium of Konkani, the present drop-out from school in the rural areas can easily be halted, but the urban parents would not want to delay the change over to English beyond four years. Thus it is becoming very difficult to maintain the Konkani medium already introduced. A shop-keeper mentality in education prevalent in Goa is not convinced of the great benefits of education in the mother tongue, and there is no hope whatever of seeing Konkani medium right through high school in the foreseeable future.
4. We make the future: The question to ask ourselves "Is if we really want Konkani at all and how badly we want our language?" "What cost are we ready to pay to make it vibrant and make it grow and thrive?" An NRI interest in Konkani will not get us anywhere. If we were to wait on the sidelines to see how it is faring and keep our options open whether to join the fray or not, then Konkani itself has no future, and much less Konkani education. If we plan our children's future without Konkani, a vague nostalgia about our ancestral language will take us nowhere. Better forget about it and do something more worthwhile.