PANAJI: Education in English is insufficient to teach humanitarian and patriotic values, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said here on Sunday, after opening for public viewing a statue of KB Hedgewar , the founder of the right-wing volunteer organization.

“English education can only train us enough to be able to earn our daily bread. These are the words of Swami Vivekananda. We don’t need such schools but those that teach us to serve for the betterment of other human beings,” Bhagwat said.

“Veer Savarkar had said, ‘If I cannot spread the fragrance of my education for the betterment of our country, then my education would be useless... Even donkeys can go around bearing the weight of books’,” Bhagwat said, close to Dr K B Hedgewar School campus.

He spoke in the presence of Goa chief minister and education minister Laxmikant Parsekar, with education officials in the audience, including Goa University vice-chancellor Satish Shetye, GU registrar V P Kamat and director of education G P Bhat.

Playing safe, Parsekar later said Bhagwat’s speech won’t influence the government while deciding on the medium of instruction (MoI) issue at schools. Parsekar said, “I don’t feel it will have any effect, positive or negative.”

Forum for Rights of Children’s Education (FORCE) has been demanding that the government pass an Act providing grants to schools with English as their MoI, while Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) has demanded the government discontinue grant-in-aid to English-medium primary schools, owned and managed by minority institutions and restrict grants only to primary schools run in Indian languages as listed in the Eighth Schedule.

The CM also said he had not discussed the issue with Bhagwat.

The winter session of the state legislative assembly will commence on January 11. Parsekar had said that medium of instruction Bill will be introduced in this session. The bill is with the select committee and once it decides on it, it will be introduced in the assembly. “The select committee will soon meet and finalize the bill,” he said, while speaking to reporters.