Panaji: After national windsurfing champion Katya Coelho was featured in the Class VIII Konkani textbook this academic year under the National Education Policy’s push to localise textbooks, she made her first visit to a school in Bicholim, turning the chapter’s hero into a real-life presence for students.Coelho visited Our Lady of Grace High School, Bicholim, where she interacted with Class VII and VIII students and answered their questions. She is only the second sportsperson to be included in Goa’s school textbooks after Brahmanand Shankhwalkar, appearing in the chapter titled ‘Patangati Katya Coelho’.“True success in both sports and life is built upon a solid foundation of determination, hard work, dedication, and strict discipline,” Coelho told students, urging them to adopt these values to achieve their dreams.The Class VIII textbook traces her start in the sport to age 11, when her father, champion windsurfer Donald Coelho, introduced her to windsurfing while most children were still learning to ride bicycles. Since then, she has won numerous national medals and became the only Indian female sailor at the Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, in 2014.Teacher Prajakta Gaonkar said the lesson highlights that Coelho has two Asian medals and is the first Indian to win a silver medal in iQFoil, a new Olympic category.Mitchell Pereira, head of the school’s Konkani department, said the State Council for Educational Research and Training, through the new textbooks, aimed to inspire Goan children with local heroes, leading to the inclusion of the chapter on Coelho.Headmistress Ivy Mascarenhas said the event was organised to bridge the gap between classroom literature and real-world heroes. She felicitated Coelho along with physical education teachers Sunil Nanodkar and Lambert Godinho.After the interaction, students gathered around Coelho for autographs and photographs.
