Celsa Pinto

Celsa Pinto is an Indian historian, educator and author. She was the former Director of Education for the Government of Goa. She has published textbooks and curricular guides, and authored several books on the history of Goa for both academic and popular audiences. She is thus noted for her contributions to Goa's educational framework and historiography.^[1]

Celsa Pinto
Pinto (right) in 2017
Subject	History of Goa
Notable works	Concise History of Goa

Early life and education

Celsa Pinto was born in Karachi between 1950 and 1952. At the age of 13 in 1964-1965, she and her family relocated to Goa.^[2] Pinto completed her Master of Arts in History at the University of Bombay in 1975, becoming the first Goan to earn a first-class honours in the subject. She later obtained a PhD in Goan history under the supervision of Teotónio de Souza.^[1]

Career

Pinto taught history for 22 years before joining the Directorate of Education, Government of Goa in 1994. Despite early legal challenges, she steadily progressed in her career to become the Deputy Director and eventually served as Director of Education until her retirement in 2011.^[1]

Curricular development

In 2024, Pinto authored Building the Base: Preschool Curriculum for Teachers and Parents, a guide published by Goa 1556 that outlines developmental objectives and play-based methodologies for pre-primary educators and parents.^[3]

Pinto also led the committee that prepared Goa’s Class IX history syllabus for the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.^[4]

Authorship and research

Pinto’s publications include her concise histories and curricular texts. She has examined Goa’s evolution from pre-colonial times through liberation and statehood in annotated volumes.^[5]

In a 2019 academic paper titled Profiling Karachi Goanness (1840s–1970s): Monuments to Goan Emigration and Identity, Pinto examined patterns of Goan migration to Karachi. She contextualized this movement within broader developments in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including the annexation of Sindh in 1842, the establishment of the Indian Flotilla in 1850, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the construction of the Lloyd Barrage. Pinto argued that these events contributed to Karachi's emergence as a key port city and created economic opportunities that attracted Goan migrants.^[2]

Publications

• Concise History of Goa (Goa University Press, 2002)
• Encapsulating History of Goa’s Generations and Eras (seven-volume series, 2019–2023)
• Building the Base: Preschool Curriculum for Teachers and Parents (Goa 1556, 2024)

Awards and recognition

In 2019 Pinto received the Goa State Award for her services to education and culture.^[1]