Row after Goa official calls Church schools 'pampered'

A Goa bureaucrat's comment calling schools run by the powerful Catholic Archdiocese Board of Education (ABE) as "pampered institutions" has triggered controversy and prompted calls for his removal.

The opposition parties Friday demanded the resignation of Education Director Anil Powar, a confidante of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who also holds the education portfolio, for what the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) claims is an insult to minority institutions.

"By calling them pampered, the education department is denigrating minority institutions which are protected by nothing less than the constitution of the country. He has to either apologise or resign from position," NCP vice president Trajano D'Mello told a press conference at the state party headquarters.

Powar, who has retired, and is at present on a service extension, had at a Teachers' Day event Thursday questioned the wisdom of the Church-run schools in rejecting the state government's proposal to appoint counsellors to interact with the students and listen to their grievances.

"These schools have been pampered institutions so far. It cannot continue. We have written to them telling them they will have to accept the counsellors appointed by us," Powar said.

In his budget speech, the chief minister had cited increasing numbers of suicides among young children as a reason for appointing counsellors for psychiatric aid to students who required it.

As part of this initiative, the Goa education department has already placed nearly 70 counsellors in over 350 schools in the state.

The counsellors, who have been trained in Mumbai, would have to visit the school once a week for interaction with the students there.

The ABE, which operates nearly 130 schools in the state, had, however, rejected the government move, insisting that they wanted to appoint counsellors on their own.

D'Mello said the ABE schools have rendered yeoman service to the education sector in Goa and that the state government should not insist on imposing its own student counsellors.

"If minority institutions want to appoint their own counsellors. The government has no right to force these appointments down their throats," he said.