Thiruvananthapuram: The public schools, which were scorned for lacking modern facilities and resources to create a sound learning environment as against the hyped, promotional claims of private schools, are now the trendsetters in Kerala’s public education arena.
The state-run public schools in Kerala, which were earlier looked down upon by the parents here, witness an unprecedented upsurge in the number of new admissions in the last two academic years.
The government of Kerala seem to have triggered a silent revolution in the education scenario of Kerala, thus bringing drastic and tremendous changes to the public education system.
Children have started joining government schools in huge numbers which clearly indicates that the parents have gained trust in the public education system of Kerala. In the academic year 2019-20, more than 5 lakh students enrolled with the Government Schools in Kerala, neglecting the CBSE and ICSE schools.
At the start of this academic year, as many as 1,02,529 students had enrolled for Class 1 in State schools, whereas 1,65,854 children had joined Government-aided private schools. A total of 2,68,383 Grade 1 students thus relied on the State schools in Kerala. This is a record-high number of admissions to government schools in the past 25 years in Kerala, as per statistics.
The surge of students to get admissions in State schools started from the 2017-18 academic year. It is also an outcome of the public education campaign initiated by the Left Government to attract students to Government schools.
In the first budget of this government, it was announced that all government State schools would be made hi-tech and state-of-the-art facilities and resources would be provided to aid school education. This was implemented systematically, to the point that the standards set by the government schools now could only be envied by most unaided private schools. All government schools have got hi-tech classrooms.
The public education sector was included in the Navakerala Mission kicked off by the State giving top priority to the development activities. This gesture gained parents’ trust in government school education.
As the students, who passed out through the DPEP system implemented by the Centre in 1994, started doing very good in their higher education streams, the parents gradually established their trust in government schools and started enrolling their children in public schools. The uprise of public schools also accounts for the success of English medium classes in Government-aided schools.
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