Panaji, Feb 26 : Goa's Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Dessai said on Sunday that performance and intelligence are not linked to any specific language.

Minister Phal Dessai was speaking during an educational programme in South Goa's Ponda.

"We send our children to 'big schools' only because they teach them to speak good English; we have a misunderstanding that mere speaking good English makes students expert. If they speak good English, it doesn't mean that they may be good in performance and intelligence. So don't link intelligence with language," he said.

He said that "our intelligence is not related to any specific language and hence parents need to imbibe 'Sanskars' in them".

"We need to identify the talent they possess and encourage them in that field," the minister added.

"People of my age will admit that we did our primary education in Government Primary school in Marathi language and then in fifth standard, we started learning the basics of English. To learn this we spent around six months of our academic year. We struggled to learn English. But today we can communicate in English," he said.

Minister Phal Dessai urged parents to not take the stress of getting their children admitted to big schools just to make them speak good English.

He said that along with academics other things should also be taught to the students.

/IANS