The Hindu : Kerala News : Sooppy flays remark `Concerted effort behind Malappuram success'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Sooppy flays remark `Concerted effort behind Malappuram success'

Staff Reporter

Civic chief joins issue with Achuthanandan

MALAPPURAM: The Malappuram district panchayat, which had taken an unprecedented initiative for the educational growth of the district in the last four years, on Monday reacted sharply to the Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan's remark linking the rise in the district's pass percentage to fraudulent means like question paper leak.

Mr. Achuthanandan's demand for an investigation into the district's growth is an insult to the 3.8 million people of Malappuram, particularly its teachers, students and parents, said the panchayat president, M. Ummer. "The Opposition leader owes an apology to the people of Malappuram," he said.

Welcoming an inquiry into the district's educational growth, Mr. Ummer challenged the Opposition leader to prove his allegation. "Let him come and see for himself; we will do whatever he says," he said.

Elucidating the success story of Malappuram, Mr. Ummer said the district achieved an enviable record of 26 per cent increase in its SSLC pass over the last three years through a concerted effort by the entire academic community. Tremendous was the role played by the teachers owing allegiance to Mr. Achuthanandan's party in attaining that success, he said.

Malappuram had spent much of its resources for educational uplift in the last four years. The district panchayat's comprehensive educational scheme `Vijayabheri' took the district's SSLC pass percentage from 33.24 in 2001 to 58.77 in 2004. In 2002, 41.23 per cent students passed SSLC examination in Malappuram; and in 2003, the pass percentage was 48.44. The rising graph of Malappuram results shows that the district is poised to cross the State average in a year. As part of the Vijayabheri scheme, students were given motivation classes. Classes were conducted during the vacation, Mr. Ummer said. "We gave better awareness to students and parents through programmes such as Unarvu. Plenty of coaching and guidance sessions were arranged," he said.

The 72 government high schools in Malappuram, according to Mr. Ummer, are better off today than any other government high school in the State. The district panchayat had given them 10 computers each. And all of them have multi-media projectors.

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