PANAJI: The department of education has decided to implement uniform curriculum in all pre-primary schools in Goa from the academic year 2011-12.

DoE sources informed that the government has already given a green signal to this proposal and the implementation of the same would be undertaken from next academic year.

The government, with an aim to maintain control over various pre-primary schools around the state and bring them in the mainstream, had decided to implement uniform curriculum in them. To accomplish this task, the government was required to carry a survey of all pre-primary institutions in Goa, besides undertaking their registration and preparing model, uniform curriculum.

The survey work for these schools has already been completed under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which has identified altogether 370 pre-primary schools in the state. The DoE has already sent notices to these schools directing them to complete registration procedure.

The DoE sources stated that around 300 pre-primary schools have responded positively to these notices, and applied for their registration with the department. The deadline for such registration ends on August 31, 2010. The parents, however, have maintained that there are over 600 private pre-primary schools operating in the state, some of which are even functioning from apartments, thus making it difficult to locate them.

Meanwhile, the work for scanning these applications as well as registration has already commenced. The assistant district education inspectors of the DoE will be undertaking surprise visits to the applicant pre-primary schools, for confirming the information given in their applications.

It was further informed that the responsibility of preparing the uniform curriculum for the pre-primary schools has been handed over to the
State Council for Education, Research and Training. The related work is in progress and the curriculum is expected to be ready by the year-end.

Incidentally, following increasing complaints from parents as regards charging of exorbitant fees by the pre-primary schools around Goa, the DoE has also ask the fee-structure committee to finalise a fee structure for such schools, after taking the parents and school managements into confidence.

The state law department had recently advised the education department that the existing Goa School Education Rules, 1986, were adequate enough to bring the pre-primary schools in the state under the ambit of the education department, which would allow the DoE to enforce compulsory registration for such schools from this academic year. It would also be mandatory to obtain the DoE’s nod while setting up new pre-primary schools in Goa. The DoE has also fixed the distance at which pre-primary schools should be located from one another.