PANAJI:  The Goa Education Development Corporation will seek assistance of experts from Mumbai and Delhi to introduce coaching classes in the state for the benefit of the youth desiring to answer competitive examinations such as various civil service examinations, and those conducted by the Union Public Service Commission as well as Goa Public Service Commission.

The recently held GEDC meeting, which was presided over by its chairman and the Education Minister, Mr Atanasio Monserrate, deciding on this matter, planned to commence such classes by November 2010. The meeting also considered the Porvorim-based premises of the GEDC, as the possible venue for the classes.
The meeting further decided that the GEDC should provide counselling facility for the students and their parents as regards the competitive examinations. Currently, no such classes exist in the state.
A highly placed source in the Corporation informed this daily that the GEDC meeting also decided to establish its technical section, under which works such as repairs of the buildings, and construction of toilets as well as compounds of the government schools and colleges would be taken up. Such works were previously carried out by the public works department and the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation. 
The GEDC source said that an executive engineer, an assistant engineer and two junior engineers would be appointed in the technical section. “There are around 250 schools around Goa waiting to be repaired, with many of them having no toilets or compounds,” he stated, adding that the PWD as well as the GSIDC have been unnecessarily delaying these works, and the technical section of the GEDC will help in speeding them up.
It was also informed that the education department is yet to furnish the details of such schools to the GEDC.
The meeting was attended by the education secretary, Dr M Modassir, director of technical education, Mr Vivek Kamat and director of higher education, Mr Bhaskar Naik among others.