The Hindu : Kerala News : Ananthamurthy panel report likely soon

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Saturday, May 01, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Ananthamurthy panel report likely soon

By J. Ajith Kumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 30. The Ananthamurthy Commission, appointed by the State Government to submit recommendations on reforms in school education in Kerala, is finalising its report.

In all probability, the report would be presented to the Government on May 4, according to U.R. Ananthamurthy, Chairman of the Commission.

The draft of the report has three sections: one containing the recommendations of the chairman and all other members of the Commission, another with suggestions put forward by two of its members and the third forming the observations of one of them, Dr. Ananthamurthy said.

It could be said that a consensus has not yet emerged on the recommendations, even though the areas of disagreement were not many, he told The Hindu at the end of another round of sitting of the Commission here today.

The Commission has had a series of deliberations with leaders of different unions of teachers, representatives of student organisations and intellectuals and their views would certainly reflect in its final report, he said.

"The report certainly is a serious document. It is for the Government to implement the report in toto or in parts. But the intention of the Commission has been to provide a new sense of direction to education at the school level in Kerala," he remarked.

As Chairman of the Commission, he was led by the concern that a Keralite should survive anywhere in the world without having to lose his Malayali identity, Dr. Ananthamurthy said. This could be hard to achieve in the globalising scenario, he added. However, keeping one's identity intact and making a living anywhere in the world was an ideal situation that one could aspire for, he added.

Even though he would not disclose, right now, the contents of the report, he indicated that the thrust was on strengthening the Government schools in the State. Despite the fact that people generally preferred private schools to those run by the Government, mainly on account of the emphasis on English education, there were better teachers in the latter than in the former. In the Kerala context, it could be said that the rich and the affluent chose the private schools and the backward sections in society depended on the Government schools. Such class segregation was very much evident here, Dr. Ananthamurthy observed.

He suggested that all students go to the same type of schools and wanted the Government to empower the Government schools to accommodate both these classes. At the school level, the ideal situation would be to teach the students in Malayalam, of course giving them a good grounding in spoken English, so as to equip them for higher studies after they complete the tenth standard. A shift to the English medium at the level of higher learning should not turn out to be a disadvantage to those attending Malayalam schools. Even with all this added emphasis on Malayalam, a Malayali should be able to survive anywhere in the world, he said.

Once this report is submitted to the Government, it would become a public document. "I believe the whole of Kerala and the entire section of Malayalis will discuss it; but it is for the Government to act on it," he remarked.

The members of the Commission have unanimously asked the Minister for Education to probe how some of the `so called' contents of the report were leaked out on a few occasions in the past even before it had been drafted, said Dr. Ananthamurthy.

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