July 6, 1998

The LDF Government faces flak after it selects favoured managements to run plus two courses.

By M G Radhakrishanan

Thomas Verghese earned an MPhil in English Literature five years ago but like many others in Kerala, the 28-year-old failed to find a job. Two weeks ago, he was offered one as a teacher at the local high school in Pathanamthitta district run by the church to which he belongs. The school had just obtained state Government approval to start the plus two course and offered him a salary of Rs 6,000 a month. But there was a catch: Rs 8 lakh as donation. Desperate to get his son the job, Verghese's father, a small trader, sold the family property. A few days later, however, Verghese was shocked to receive a phone call from the management informing him that the donation amount had been raised to Rs 10 lakh. He was also politely reminded that there were others who would pay up if he didn't. Unable to raise the additional amount, Verghese remains unemployed.

This is just one of the hundreds of deals going on in the state since May 15, when the Marxist-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government permitted 178 government-aided private schools and 95 government schools to start plus two courses as part of the policy to delink the two-year pre-degree course from colleges. For the management of the private schools, the order presented the opportunity to rake in crores of rupees by "auctioning" teaching and other jobs. Each school has been allowed three batches in the humanities, science and commerce streams, adding up to about 150 students, 15 teaching vacancies and some non-teaching posts. At Rs 10 lakh per teaching assignment, each school management could collect up to about Rs 1.5 crore, while their investment on classrooms and laboratories would set them back by less than Rs 20 lakh.

Of the 12,265 schools in the state, 7,309 are aided private schools which means that the state pays the salaries to all the staff in these institutions even though the power to appoint staff (and demand donations) rests with the management. Over the years, powerful religious and caste organisations which run most of these schools bargained with the government of the day to start more schools and make more money. But the latest government order has drawn protests from virtually all managements which say they have been allotted a lesser number of seats. Particularly irked are managements linked to communities like Muslims, Ezhavas and the Roman Catholics. They feel that most of the seats have been cornered by schools managed by orthodox Christian and upper caste Nair communities that form the vote bank of the Kerala Congress (J), a party limited to parts of central Kerala and whose leader P.J. Joseph is the state education minister. "Of the 178 schools approved for the courses," complains K.K. Abubaker, general secretary, Muslim Educational Society, "over 56 per cent went to managements belonging to Christians who constitute just 17 per cent of the population. Muslims, who form 22 per cent of the population, got only 6 per cent." Equally miffed is the politically powerful Ezhava community, a Hindu backward caste. "We form more than 15 per cent of the population, yet permission has been given to only 27 schools (6 per cent). We will launch a stir in alliance with other backward communities if this is not corrected," says Vellappally Natesan, general secretary of the community's Sree Narayana Trust (SNT). Joseph, however, explains that the Government had no direct say in preparing the list of schools. Says he: "The lists were prepared by a committee headed by panchayat presidents in each district."

Meanwhile in the face of the protests, particularly from the SNT which enjoys considerable clout in the CPI(M), the LDF has appointed a cabinet subcommittee to look into the grievances. But this has come under attack from the LDF's own organisations. The 80,000-strong pro-CPI(M) Kerala State Teachers' Association and student organisations affiliated to the CPI(M) and the CPI have started agitating against the anomalies in the educational policy. "If the LDF allows more batches or schools it will be a violation of its own policy," says K. Rajan, secretary, All India Students Federation. On the other hand, Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil, patriarch of the Roman Catholic Church which runs most of the private schools in the state, has warned the Government against "encroaching into minorities' education rights". Already, there are a host of court cases on the issue, and the Kerala High Court has put a temporary stay on the managements' right to make appointments.

With almost everyone associated with the state's education at loggerheads, nobody seems to be bothered about the lot of the students. That Kerala's students have been the biggest losers through the years is highlighted in the recent report of the task force set up by the State Planning Board. The report points out that the accent of the state education policy has been on quantity while the quality of education imparted has slipped to unenviable depths. Besides, 75 per cent of the state's annual expenditure on education -- Rs 1,810 crore in 1996-97 -- is spent on salaries and pensions. "Schools must be run by local communities which know what is best for the locals and not by government or private profiteers," says eminent educationist P.K. Michael Tharakan of the Centre for Development Studies. But in a state that boasts of a 100 per cent literacy rate, education is big business. For now, nobody is buying Tharakan's argument.

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