Thiruvananthapuram: A sharp U-turn by the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) after intense infighting for the past few days over implementing the PM SHRI scheme in Kerala.
The announcement came from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan himself after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He said a cabinet sub-committee will be formed to decide on the matter, and until then the scheme would be on hold. The decision would also be communicated to the Centre.
“There were a lot of controversies and concerns raised after an MoU was signed on the PM-SHRI scheme. Considering that, we have decided to review the implementation of the scheme and prepare a report,” Vijayan said.
Under a central scheme launched in September 2022, the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM-SHRI) aims to improve the infrastructure and quality of education. Under the scheme, states will receive funds for education provided they align with the National Education Policy (NEP). This last has caused concern in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The decision to put on hold the PM SHRI scheme was taken after a series of meetings on Wednesday, attended by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, party state secretary M.V. Govindan, LDF convenor T.P. Ramakrishnan, CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam and other leaders hours before the cabinet meeting. Four ministers of the CPI, opposed to the scheme in Kerala, had initially threatened to boycott the cabinet meeting. But after U-turn, they attended the cabinet meeting.
The seven-member cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Education Minister V. Sivankutty, includes ministers P. Rajeev, Roshy Augustine, K. Rajan, P. Prasad, K. Krishnankutty, and A.K. Saseendran. Prasad and Rajan belong to the CPI.
Reacting to the decision, CPI state secretary Binoy Viswam said the state government’s decision is a victory of Left ideology and Left unity, not just of the CPI alone.
“In whatever way we could have taken this issue, we did that. And we have learned that there is a positive movement and everything is moving positively,” CPI general secretary D. Raja told the media in Delhi.
Why Kerala signed the MoU
Initially reluctant to implement the scheme, the Kerala government had signed the MoU with the Centre after what many saw as arm-twisting by the Centre—the refusal to release Rs 1,400 crore Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds for Kerala.
Under the Centre’s umbrella programme SSA, states and UTs receive education funds that are linked to signing the PM SHRI MoU. Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu refused to sign as they did not want to align with the National Education Policy (NEP).
According to a Parliamentary Committee report published in March, the Centre had withheld Rs 1,000 crore from West Bengal, Rs 859.63 crore from Kerala, and Rs 2,152 crore from Tamil Nadu from the SSA funds. As per the report, 33 of the 36 states/UTs had signed the MoU for PM SHRI.
Though General Education Minister V. Sivankutty announced the government decision to sign the MoU on 19 October, it was later revealed that the MoU was executed earlier, on 16 October, shortly after CM Pinarayi Vijayan met PM Narendra Modi in Delhi on 10 October.
The state government’s decision to go ahead with the scheme was taken unilaterally, without discussions with its biggest ally CPI, even though the CPI had made clear its opposition to the NEP as early as 2020.
The announcement led to dissent in the Left camp as the CPI leadership as well as the party’s four ministers in the cabinet openly spoke against the scheme, alleging that aligning with the NEP would lead to the implementation of RSS ideologies in the education sector.
The stalemate assumed political importance as Kerala is headed for crucial local body elections in a month and Assembly polls early next year.
Notably, though the CPI and CPI(M) have disagreed on several issues in the last few years, this is the first time the CPI has stood its ground without compromising in a long time.
Talking to ThePrint, state-based political analyst Joseph C. Mathew said the CPI had to take a firm stand as aligning with the PM-SHRI scheme would have been perceived as capitulation and reduced the Left’s political relevance.
However, he said it was significant that Pinarayi Vijayan had to compromise on his stand. “CPI can’t compromise because it’s part of an existential crisis. The issue pertains to the relationship with the BJP. If there is a dilution in that, there is no relevance for the Left parties now,” he said, adding that the parties would make sure such a stalemate would not happen again.
Points of opposition
A central scheme launched in September 2022, Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) aims to improve the infrastructure and quality of education. The scheme was proposed to be implemented in over 14,500 schools across the nation, a maximum of two schools per block, between 2022 and 2027.
As per the Centre, the PM-SHRI schools will showcase various aspects of the NEP 2020 and become “exemplar schools” in their regions. The scheme gives incentives to yield results and perform better through a funding mechanism that is tracked through quality parameters. The schools will also be green schools, as they will have solar lights, LED lights, nutrition gardens with natural farming, waste management, etc.
One of the Communist Party’s main objections to the PM-branded scheme is the NEP 2020. “We have always demanded that NEP shouldn’t be implemented here. If we examine PM-SHRI, many aspects don’t seem problematic at first glance, such as the smart classrooms and infrastructure. But NEP is hidden there, and it’s slowly emerging now. NEP is a slow-emerging poison of the education system,” Bibin Abraham, state president of the CPI’s student wing, told ThePrint. He also noted that NEP was passed without discussing it in Parliament in 2020, adding that each state will face its own issues.
Bibin Abraham said the Teachers’ Training Institutes will change. The policy aims for an integrated four-year B.Ed. by 2030, with admission done through a national entrance exam, or a two-year/one-year B.Ed. course for people with a bachelor’s degree. Currently, the teacher education includes a two-year B.Ed. course with a bachelor’s degree as eligibility. There are also Teacher Training diploma courses to qualify for elementary school teaching.
The PM SHRI scheme also aims to phase out substandard and dysfunctional Teacher Education Institutions.
The CPI is also opposed to the NEP’s centralised entrance exams and the Centre-prescribed syllabus.
“We saw recently how Mughal history was removed from our textbooks, as well as the murder of Gandhi ji,” Abraham said.
Abraham also said once PM-SHRI schools were set up, the future of the 4,800 state government smart schools would become uncertain after 2027.
“Education is a concurrent list. Once NEP is implemented, the state will have no role in it. It will reach a point where the Centre is controlling our schools in everything, even in language,” Abraham said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: ‘Milestone’ pact after 3 years of resistance—the debate over PM-SHRI & what’s behind Kerala’s U-turn