Public Sector Education: A Kerala Tale

Shilpa Surendran

A commonly agreed idea is that education is the lethal weapon provided to us for changing this world. The public education sector of Kerala proves this right by frequently setting stunning models of it for the rest of the states to learn from.

The Kerala model of school education is the buzz nowadays, for having implemented various progressive policies. Impressed by the progress, Bangladesh Primary Education Minister, Muhammed Zakir Hussain, visited Prof. C Raveendranath, the Kerala education minister, some months back hoping to emulate Kerala’s education model in their own country. The Left government in Kerala, led by Pinarayi Vijayan, ever since it came to power has advocated the importance of raising critical awareness amongst school students, regarding India’s contemporary political scenario. As part of this, it was made necessary for schools to read the Preamble of the Indian Constitution during morning assemblies. The government has vowed to revolutionise public education in the state, making it one of their four major areas of focus. The ‘Pothu Vidhyabhyasa Samrakshana Yajnjyam’ (Save Public Education Campaign), launched under the govt’s aegis, has played a major role in empowering school education and thereby bringing a mammoth socio-economic shift in people’s lives. This program, which is of extreme importance to the government, has been taken up with an urge to increase student enrolment in public schools, by inviting people’s support.

Good education is supposed to offer a structured and scientific understanding of the world we live in and provide an opportunity to use it for the betterment of the same. The backbone of any modern democracy, education needs to be dealt with with utmost importance. Issues concerning higher education sector for years have been topics for raging debates across the country. At the same time, the bitter reality of Indian school education has attracted minimum attention.

A campaign to save public education

For some years in Kerala, people were seen flocking to English medium private schools after the launch of multiple campaigns aimed at the promotion of such institutions as ‘new centres of quality learning’. Public school education was left for the economically weak, who could not bear to afford this ‘private boom’ in learning. Towards the end of the last UDF government’s term, public schools had witnessed a growth in the number of school dropouts, following the aforementioned trend. The plight of these schools was pathetic and many of them they faced threats of a shutdown, due to lack of students. However, under the current government’s leadership, the state has done a fantastic flip in the last three years with a record of around 5.04 lakh new students in its public schools, placing Kerala at the top of the School Education Quality Index with a whopping 82.17%. The Nadakkavu Government Vocational Higher Secondary School For Girls (GVHSS) in Kozhikode was recognized as the second best government school in India, by an agency called the Education World. All of this is ample evidence of the success of the government’s campaign to revive interest and confidence amongst Kerala’s parents in public schools.

The main focus of the campaign has been to improve infrastructural facilities and achieve international standard in learning. About 44705 normal classrooms in 4757 secondary and higher secondary schools were converted into high-tech ones by providing access to advanced digital and technical aids, under the campaign. Schools have been converted into centres of excellence via an allocation of sufficient funds for necessities like uniform, libraries, dining area, advanced laboratories etc. In fact, when images of children eating salt, rice and rotis for their mid-day-meal in UP’s schools were doing the rounds on social media, Kerala’s schools were beaming with pride about their dedication to ensure that a healthy diet for their students. Kerala’s mid-day meal scheme boasts of a variety of nutritional food items. Besides this, several specialised programs have been introduced to invoke interest in ‘dry’ subjects like mathematics, science and the languages. 

This movement shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to change the face of Kerala’s public education system alone, but also a revolutionary shift in the attitude towards it. The lives of large sections of the society, which had only dreamt of affordable and accessible education, can now be seen illuminated by these efforts. The state’s education sector has thus become an inclusive space, especially for the marginalised. In addition to this, there has also been a positive shift in the public’s perspective towards education. The shift was from from a capitalistic view of education as a commodity, to recognising it a necessity. Above all, schools in Kerala have become the plots fertile for ideas of unity and equality to blossom. Around two lakh students who enrolled themselves in public schools in the last two years have left the ‘caste’ column on their admission forms either empty or have written ‘No caste’/’Nil’. This too is as another feat of the campaign, indicating how the state’s education system and the atmosphere it provides have made it possible for students to stand out as ‘humans’, beyond their caste, creed, race, religion, gender identities.

There’s a rising concern to protect the education sector in India as fair and accessible public education today is under immense threat. In Budget-discussions conducted by SFI across the nation, the failure of the NDA government to alleviate sufficient funds was a repeatedly raised issue. This is hard time for education in India as the recent Union Budget too has made a sharp cut of around 3.2% in fund allocation.

The public is increasingly doubtful of the purpose of education, as privatisation and eventual communalisation of the sector has become the new norm in the country. The Kerala Model thus is a strong alternative that has redefined the meaning of education in contemporary India. The need of the hour is to create citizens who are aware of the future of this nation and are encouraged to look at it critically. When the nation’s elected leaders are busy shaping up the youth to compete in the job market, for instance through initiatives like the National Education Policy (NEP) and related moves, we must recognise that real emphasis should be on safeguarding the secular-rational ethos of our educational system. The challenge today is to be able to save constitutional values and preserve ‘unity in diversity’. School education sculpts students into what they happen to be in the future. Hence, we need to emphasise and develop school level education, which in turn will pave the way for better higher education. The example offered by the Left alternative in Kerala is something that could be adopted in states across India. The priority should be to provide affordable and accessible public education accommodate the marginalized and minorities. Education first, statues and walls later.

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Shilpa Surendran is a student of English literature at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, and a Central Executive Committee (CEC) Member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI).

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