The Kerala government has decided to join the Central government’s Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) education scheme, ending months of uncertainty inside the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) coalition.
Education Minister V. Sivankutty told reporters that the decision has been formally transmitted to the Union Ministry and that the department secretary will sign the agreement. “We had to do this to secure the Rs 1,500 crore that has been pending for several Kerala education programmes,” he said.
This marks a major policy shift for the LDF, which had earlier left the PM SHRI scheme twice when the Communist Party of India (CPI) opposed it. “We did not bring this to the State Cabinet because we followed the same procedure that the Agriculture and Higher Education departments used when joining Central projects,” Sivankutty explained.
The latest move came after a meeting between him and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPI(M) leadership also cleared the way for Kerala’s participation.
Under the PM SHRI plan, two schools in each district block will receive central funding and be developed into model schools. Each chosen school will get an average annual grant of Rs 1 crore for five years to upgrade infrastructure and teaching standards.
Kerala had initially resisted joining because it feared the scheme could push the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) in the state. CPI members and education activists worried that “PM SHRI School” branding would compromise the state’s autonomy in education policy.
However, the State Education Department warned that Kerala’s absence from the scheme had resulted in the freezing of Rs 1,500 crore under the Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK) programme, which has disrupted salaries for nearly 6,000 SSK employees.
Sivankutty made it clear that while Kerala will take part in PM SHRI to receive the funds, the state will not apply any NEP provisions it has rejected, including changes to syllabus and historical content.
Source: ianslive
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