How an ailing, poorly managed education system was revived to be the most robust in the country

Kerala Education Minister Prof. C Raveendranath in 2016 launched the 'Public Education Rejuvenation Mission' to revitalize the declining public education system. The core idea of the Mission was to rejuvenate the public education system to ensure quality education for all and make Kerala marginalisation free. Within 4 and a half years' time when the NITI Ayog's State Education Quality Index Report 2019 came out, Kerala's public education system had witnessed a revival, so much so, that the report ranked Kerala's public education system as the best in the country, writes ETV Bharat News Coordinator (Kerala) K Praveen Kumar.

Thiruvananthapuram:Prior to 1995, there were thousands of government school teachers in Kerala who woke up to the fear of losing their job. Most often their frantic efforts to retain the students in the government schools failed miserably as parents continued to rally behind more fashionable, well maintained private schools that have been mushrooming in their vicinity. Middle class families squeezed their resources to pay the hefty capitation and school fee to keep their children in private schools. Division cuts and job cuts were the norm of the day in the public education system back then. Teachers raided the houses nearby to lure children to government schools. Though their efforts managed to improve the pass percentage at the government schools, the migration of students from government to private schools continued unabated.

When things looked bleak, Kerala's public education system started witnessing a revival incomparable from 2016 and within 4 and a half years' time NITI Ayog's State Education Quality Index Report 2019, ranked Kerala's public education system as the best in the country.

What the Government Did

A special mission, 'Public Education Rejuvenation Mission' was launched in 2016 by the Education Minister Prof. C Raveendranath. The core idea of the Mission was to rejuvenate the public education system to ensure quality education for all and make Kerala marginalisation free. And in the last four and a half years' the results have been astounding.

With the launch of the Mission, the government kick started several projects. The IT@School project, which was launched in 2001-02 was relaunched as Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE). KITE is the first Special Purpose Vehicle company of the Education Department of Kerala that had an herculean task ahead of it. The core objective of KITE was to design, develop and inculcate ICT enabled activities in over 15,000 government and aided schools in the state. KITE also became the first SPV to be funded by the Kerala Infrastructure and Investment Fund Board (KIIFB). KITE supplements the Public Education Rejuvenation Mission through special initiatives like Samagra Content Portal, Sampoorna School Management Software and SchoolWiki, which connects 15000 schools for collaborative content development process. KITE also launched 'Victers' Channel, the first complete educational channel in the country, which has come in handy when the education system was switched to online classes following Covid lockdown.

A special project launched by KITE, 'Little KITE's IT Clubs' provided specialised training in 5 different areas such as Animation, Cyber Safety, Hardware, Electronics, Electronics, Malayalam computing, Artificial intelligence and Robotics for over 1 lakh students. Over 1.5 lakh teachers and over 50 lakh students stand benefited through the ICT initiatives by KITE every year.

Special focus on gender equality

As part of the education rejuvenation mission, a special programme was launched to ensure better gender sensitivity among school children. GET-UP, the girls' empowerment Training programme aimed at the comprehensive development of girl children at Upper Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary schools. Special girls' clubs were established in these schools encouraging children to organise group discussions, debates and other activities to understand gaps in school activities with respect to gender. They are also encouraged to organise school's annual function on the themes of gender equality and women empowerment.

Local schools local involvement

Public participatory education was a big step in the right direction that gave a sense of ownership of government schools to the local public. Kerala redefined the concept of public-private partnership through an innovative concept of public-public partnership. The first public in this concept is the government which ensured smooth fund flow for school development through KIIFB and the second public is the local people who actively participate to ensure quality education. Apart from KIIFB funds, funds from the local panchayat, municipality and district panchayat along with MP and MLA funds were added on for infrastructure development. The School modernisation plan successfully incorporated an infra and techno friendly environment in class room for overall quality improvement.

Public and school alumni participation is also encouraged to improve the physical infrastructure of government schools.

Language of your choice

Poor quality of English education in government schools was one of the main reasons for students abandoning government schools in Kerala. As part of the rejuvenation mission, the government started both medium schools in the same premises and gave the choice to the students to select their medium of instruction. So most of the government schools in Kerala have both Malayalam and English medium schools and both are attracting students equally. With the incorporation of English medium schools, the quality of English education in Malayalam medium schools also have improved tremendously. Effective changes in the syllabus and curriculum activities also ensured that government school students could compete with any other school student in the world.

We take care of our children

Kerala revolutionised the concept of welfare education for the students who got enrolled into the public education stream. Uniforms for all the students, irrespective of their financial status, till Class 8, are distributed free of cost. Girl students and SC/ST students upto Class 10 get their uniforms free of cost. Kerala government decided to provide handloom uniforms to the students and thus helped an ailing industry to come to life again.

In addition to Uniforms, under the nutritional meal programme, milk and egg are provided apart from a fully balanced noon meal is provided free of cost in all schools. Text books for all students up to Class 8 are provided free of cost. In order to avoid overburdening the children, text books were split into volumes. Books were provided to students much ahead of school reopening.

Now the government schools in Kerala are on par with any international schools both in infrastructure facilities and education quality. The large influx of students to government schools every year stand testimony to the progress the public education system in Kerala has achieved.