Kerala’s ‘Vision 2031’: General Education Minister’s seminar identifies critical gap areas

The General Education department has identified critical gaps in areas such as curriculum and assessment and teacher professionalism for interventions in the wake of a State-level ‘Vision 2031’ seminar.

A final document will be prepared and submitted to the government on the basis of the discussions at the seminar and Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty’s speech.

The department hopes that the curriculum will evolve into an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary one for high school and higher secondary classes. Assessment practices will be made more innovative, transparent, and tech-integrated.

Teacher professionalism is another critical area where interventions will be needed. The department is mulling changes to the cascading mode of in-service teacher training. It will examine such aspects as whether to give training to all teachers every year or if the training for an experienced teacher and a new recruit needs to be uniform.

Inclusive education, pre-primary education, process reforms in governance and education, skill education, art and physical education, and technology in education are the other priority areas.

‘Transform public education’

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who inaugurated the seminar said the State had achieved excellence in school education but if there existed some failing these should be addressed. Interventions needed to further improve school education should be identified during the seminar. “We can transform public education in Kerala to the best in the world,” Mr. Vijayan said.

Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty stressed that education should foster critical and problem-solving skills, besides making learning a process that can be explored with joy. He called for focus on education of children in tribal and coastal areas, especially their enrolment and retention. He also emphasised the need for using data collected effectively by analysing them in detail.

A panel discussion moderated by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) director Jayaprakash R.K. followed the inaugural.

Key speakers

Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) chairperson K.N. Ganesh pointed out that public education in Kerala faced second-generation challenges. He called for examining if there was a disparity between the outcome-based education the State has achieved and retention figures. He also stressed the need for outcomes to account for all diversity in students coming to schools, be it gender, caste, class, disability, and so on.

Namitha Ranganathan, professor, University of Delhi, called for services of teachers to be used for teaching rather than Census data collection, voter list updation, and so on. “An ecosystem where respect and dignity is given to teachers,” she said.

She highlighted the difference between developing teachers as professionals and just training them. Development, she pointed out, was a continuous process done in different domains through in-service teacher education programmes, rather than a one-time process.

Kathan Shukla, associate professor, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, spoke on ‘Efficient management and governance for quality school education,’ and Venkatesh Hariharan, academic who works in the area of educational technology, spoke on school education and changing technology.