People's Democracy

THE SFI Kerala state committee has charted out a plan of agitation against the destructive education policy of the UDF government. SFI will hold a march to the residence of the Kerala Education Minister on the July 18. Thousands of students will also march to the Thiruvananthapuram collectorate and the state secretariat on the same day.

The topsy-turvy and anti-people education policy of the Anthony government has dealt severe blows on the educational and social progress achieved by Kerala during the last fifty years. The Acting under the dictates of the liberalisation-globalisation-privatisation masters, the state government is withdrawing from all service sectors including education. Closure of regular schools, patronage and encouragement to unaided, self-financing educational institutions, steep increase in fee, unified University Act and many other measures are part of this policy.

The white paper of the UDF government had recommended closing down more than 2500 schools saying they were non-viable. But in the face of severe opposition from the people and serious agitations from the student community, the government had to beat a retreat and limited the closure to 48 schools. This however, does not mean that the government would stop further closures.

Nobody seems to ponder over how so many schools became unprofitable and how the number of pupils in these schools has dwindled. The main reason for such a situation is the unrestrained encouragement given to private sector by the government to open unaided, self-financing schools. The education minister has openly declared that in the place of schools now being closed down the government would sanction new unaided, self-financing schools. This totally exposes the real intentions of the government. Wealthy barons of the UDF run these unaided institutions.

More than one-third of the total lower primary schools and one-fifth of the other schools are under threat of closure after the state government issued orders extending the private education up to seventh standard.. This attempt of the govt. will lead to a further reduction of pupils in regular schools, in ehich around 1.25 lakh pupils are studying. Most of the pupils in these schools come from socially and economically backward sections like scheduled caste and scheduled tribes. They would not be able to attend unaided schools, as they are impoverished and simply cannot afford to pay the exorbitant capitation fee charged by these institutions.

Free and universal education is going to be a thing of the past in Kerala in the very near future due to this anti-social and anti-people education policy. A sum of Rs.25/ per month is being charged now in high schools for the so-called teaching of computer education. Clearly, this is a violation of the norm of free secondary and higher secondary education which was a hard won right and privilege of Kerala society. SFI is proud that it was under the banner of the SFI that the struggle for free education up to the higher secondary level was taken up and fought. So SFI has now demanded the government that whatever be the subject taught as part of curriculum, no fees should be collected from the students and no attempt should be made to torpedo the privilege of free education up to the higher secondary level.

At present, nearly eight thousand seats are remaining vacant in Plus Two schools. But at the same time the government has granted permission to start unaided Plus Two schools and also to introduce unaided Plus Two batches in regular schools. In colleges too similar pattern is envisaged. In all 378 private self-financing institutions were given permission during this year. No verification of the infrastructure facilities or the fulfillment of the criteria has been made at the time of granting these permissions.

A new feature of the present policy of the UDF government is that the special rights so far enjoyed by the minorities would now be granted to the majority and other communities too. This is in total opposition to the norms given by the supreme court in the already famous Unnikrishnan case. The court had ordered that in all seats, free as well as payment, merit should be the only criterion for admission. But the UDF has decided a new quota system, which facilitates the private managements to sell seats in professional colleges. According to the new quota system, 20 per cent of the seats could be appropriated by the management itself as a manager, another 20 per cent in the name of the community of the management, and 10 per cent in the name of reservation to the NRIs. This is a clear violation of the court norms and hitherto practiced system of admission and reservation. Therefore it is illegal. The RSS has been demanding the same thing for the last many years. The increase in the fees structure is phenomenal in these colleges. In the medical colleges it is 500 per cent. In technical education also a similar hike is envisaged. The increase in university fee is expected to be around 1000 per cent.

The state planning board vice-chairman is issuing orders to the VCs to increase their fee structure and develop infrastructure and other facilities. The unified University Act Bill aims at dissolving and putting an end to the elected university bodies and installing nominated persons to the university syndicates and senates and academic councils and so on. This is an attempt to enlist only the ruling party persons into the university administrative bodies. This Act also envisages the "ushering in" of private and foreign universities on our soil. If this Bill is not defeated, it will destroy the democratic character of the universities of Kerala, their autonomy, their special identity, and their diversity.

The SFI has decided to launch a long drawn out agitation in collaboration with the academic community of Kerala against this hated Bill. It would join hands with all sections of people to form a broad and strong forum for agitation against the anti-democratic education measures of the UDF government. As part of this, SFI would collect the signatures of the people of all sections from the booths arranged in all main bus stations of Kerala. Booklets will be distributed, street meetings would be organised to explain the problems and dangers to education. On July 2, student squads will travel in trains through out Kerala and campaign among passengers on these issues. SFI will continue the agitations until the anti-education policy is corrected. The SFI leaders of the state have called upon the people of Kerala to help them in their struggle as the future of education is at stake.