Goa schools to teach civic sense as subject

PANAJI: In order to better the condition of civic amenities in the state, the Goa Education Development Corporation (GEDC), which was established under the Goa Education Development Corporation Act 2003, has decided to integrate subjects like sanitation including personal sanitation, waste management, and traffic sense in the school curriculum. The subjects were being taught in schools in Goa as a part of a pilot project launched in 2018 to educate children about basic civic sense.

The GEDC is planning to include officials from various civic bodies in order to provide the children with an ‘educational feed’ by officials who work in the field. This will help the children to better understand the day-to-day work carried out by civic officials and how, as residents, the children can help in keeping the state clean.

The pilot project was launched in 2018 by Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister, Goa after he discussed the importance of these subjects with educationists in the state. Goa is often identified as the ‘tourist state’ in India and thus is faced with the problem of floating residents (people who live in a place for a short duration of time, example tourists). By educating the children, the condition of civic amenities in the state is bound to improve.

Kanta Patnekar, Chairman, GEDC said that the Corporation undertook 80 per cent of the research behind the project, as the inception mandate is to develop competitive, flexible and value-based education system to meet the individual, institution and socio cultural development needs of the people of Goa.

GEDC is now in the process of finalising the content for the academic year 2020-2021. Patnekar said that the authority is integrating the subjects in the school curriculum and will also be given as optional papers. As per the plan, traffic sense will be a part of Physical Education subject and the rest of the two subjects will be part of the science and social science subjects.