Schooled to Boss

The Manovikas farce


The education ‘arrangement’ (I would like to call it that) in Goa is just like the Goa Assembly notwithstanding the two MLAs who forged their educational qualifications. But, to think the Manovikas High School in Margao qualifies! The recent AGM (July 10) of the school run by Therese Almeida, the founder with proven quality, was vintage Goan. Double standards, classic two-facedness, etcetera. The lights were put off when the ‘ruling class’ felt they had enough of the ‘opposition’ and Therese Almeida stormed out with a section of parents following meekly in her wake. In the Assembly, MLAs are expelled physically only when they resist going by themselves, so, I guess they are better. One PTA (parents, teachers association) member summed up the whole episode like this: ‘If she is going to such lengths, she has something to hide’. A routine PTA election meet turned out to be a platform for the school management to browbeat a section of parents. It began with a non agenda item when a newly recruited teacher obviously tasked with the job, began praising the management. She lambasted those parents who she felt were preventing the management from paying teachers the VI th pay commission scale. Her diatribe was a culmination of what every class teacher had been telling students in class, “Some parents are stopping our increments”. Sources say it is Therese Almeida who is instigating new teachers to make it look like some parents are not supporting the growth of the school. Her unspoken order: ‘never question me’. In other words create a heated debate and deftly deflect from the real issues that concerns students and therefore parents.


Divide and Rule

Divisive, did I say? One parent spoke well about the school but then added that parents opposing a fee hike were ‘anti-school.’ Another parent sang the same tune, adding, he was willing to pay ‘10 times more for a good education.’ But naturally, he works on a floating casino! And, the fees roughly are upwards of Rs 40,000 per year. The anti-parent stuff went on and on! An office bearer of an association that has gone to court on an issue relevant here (to the teachers pay actually) was personally attacked by Therese Almeida, who went to the extent of denying him an opportunity to speak. The man was even heckled by a section of parents. When the PTA president, ironically in the ‘opposition’ pleaded his case, he too was booed. The two parents were trying to get some clarity on the issue of the teachers not being paid their dues –strangely, a banned topic all these years at Manovikas.


Dance of Democracy

And, lo and behold when the elections were finally held, traumatic wouldn’t even begin to describe what unfolded. The 180 parents present were made to sign the ‘secret’ ballot papers and write their names down. This was done to prevent an ‘opposition’ member from getting elected. It also forced the teachers to vote for the ‘right’ candidate. The ‘opposition’ leader lost, but he did get 65 of the 180 votes. Take away the votes of the 40 teachers, it means the ‘official’ candidate had a close call. 140-65=75; 65+40=105. In a democracy, the ‘opposition’ would have won.

It would take several columns to describe the fracas at the PTA meet. But do know that Therese Almeida walked out, her chastising over, followed meekly by the teachers and some parents. Now, this is when that Goan duplicity stood out once again like a festering sore that refuses to heal. There were still 30/40 parents in the hall. The lights were switched off. Is this the way a PTA is conducted? No respect was shown to parents who wanted to present their side of the case, not necessarily on the ‘official’ side. However that one act of switching off the light won over a few parents.


Talk of cronyism and nepotism

Once outside the same hecklers became neoconverts. Two possible reasons. One they had already shown their allegiance to the director inside. Outside, they had to enact the double game, to show they were united with the other parents. As some hecklers justified, “we did not want to, but in the grapevine the news was you do not want to pay fees.” Therese Almeida no doubt made it appear that because parents are not paying the higher fees the school cannot hike salaries. Point is, there is little transparency here. The trust is a charitable organization and claims IT benefits -it is not supposed to make profits. It is also stuffed with an engineer and an architect, who have been awarded school construction contracts; a son- in- law (a daughter is a teacher), a former chairman’s daughter, and a former student in the electronics business.

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