The Hindu : Kerala News : Documenting history of education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 24, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala

Documenting history of education

N.J. Nair

Special focus on governmental interventions
Government to ensure mass participation

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Government is working on a project to document the education history of the State from the pre-independence period to the present, with a special focus on governmental interventions for quality enhancement from time to time.

Though the cardinal reforms of the British in the 19th century will figure in the project, the educational reforms initiated by the late Joseph Mundassery, Education Minister in the first Government headed by the late E.M.S. Namboodiripad, which set the course of drastic changes in the sector, will be the real starting point.

The socio-political situation that prompted Joseph Mundassery to pilot the reforms, the changes that swept the State subsequently and evolution of the education system over the past five decades will be subjected to a thorough study for preparing a comprehensive report. The report will be a ready-reckoner and a reference document for educationists, administrators and politicians.

Official sources told The Hindu that a similar initiative of the previous Government was reportedly aborted due to political and bureaucratic interventions. Information will be elicited from all those who had made significant contri butions for the growth and development of the sector, including former Education Ministers, academicians, politicians and bureaucrats who were instrumental in making policy decisions, student leaders, Planning Board members, heads of various educational institutions and leaders of organisations like the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) which played a pivotal role in continuing education and literacy drive.

The project would be fine-tuned in consultation with Education Minister M.A. Baby within a week, sources said. Instead of reducing the project preparation to a mere bureaucratic and scholastic exercise, the Government would involve experts from different walks of life, including political leaders, for ensuring a mass participation and widening its data base, sources said.

Successive Governments had played a corrective role in guiding the sector in the right course. Hence, the historical importance of such interventions in moulding the modern society would be one of the main components of the report. Various legislations from 1957 to the latest one on self-financing education and the reports of various commissions would be included, sources said.

The role of progressive movements, social reformers, educational programmes launched by the State Government and implementation of Centrally-sponsored schemes for raising the standard of education would figure in the document.

The complementary role played by various agencies, including religious groups, and their endeavours would also be discussed, sources said.

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