Thiruvananthapuram: The opposition UDF members staged a walkout in the Kerala Assembly on Wednesday in protest against the government's decision to accept the recommendations of the M A Khader Committee set up to overhaul the school education system. The opposition said the committee's recommendations would kill the quality of school education.
Education Minister C Raveendranath attempted to assuage the members saying that the government had no intention of implementing the report in its full, at least in the first phase. “We have taken up only two aspects of the 14 major recommendations that the committee had made. And these relate only to the improvement in academic quality and the administrative restructuring of the school system,” the minister said while replying to the adjournment motion moved by Muslim League leader K N A Khader.
The minister said that even the two recommendations taken up from the Khader committee report were put through various changes after detailed discussions with stakeholders like teacher and non-teacher organisations, student organisations and school managements. K N A Khader, in turn, said that the changes would destroy democracy in the school education system and would lead to the centralisation of the decision making process.
The minister listed three major changes on the basis of the recommendations made by the Khader committee. One, the lower primary, upper primary, higher secondary and vocational higher secondary wings in a school will come under a single principal.
The higher secondary principal, who till now was responsible only for higher secondary classes, will be the principal of all the wings, right down to the lower primary classes. The school head master will be the vice principal of the entire school, right up to the higher secondary classes.
“Bringing the school under one principal would enhance the chances of the school transforming into a single family-like unit. It will also allow people's representatives to coordinate activities for the school more smoothly. Now, there was confusion as to whom to contact for school-related activities, should it be the principal or should it be the headmaster,” the minister said.
Two, there will be a unified office system for schools. Three, the post of Director of General Education (DGE) will subsume posts like Directorate of Public Instructions (DPI) and Higher Secondary Directorate and Vocational Higher Secondary Directorate. The minister said this would cut down disputes regarding the posts of principals and headmasters in schools. However, the posts of assistant educational officer, district educational officer and the deputy director of education will stay. The committee had called for the scrapping of these posts.
“All of these changes reflect administrative restructuring and has nothing to do with academic excellence,” K N A Khader said. He also pointed out what he called the folly of appointing a headmaster, who is a lower secondary teacher, as the vice principal of the entire school. “A higher secondary teacher is far more qualified than a lower secondary teacher and catapulting a lower secondary teacher above higher secondary teachers could trigger serious displeasure,” Khader said.
The opposition members also flagged the concern among higher secondary teachers that they may be asked to teach lower classes. The minister said such fears were misplaced.