By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
Thiruvananthapuram: The Left Democratic Front yesterday recommended to the government to allot more seats and schools for plus two in the Malabar area. The recommendation was made after a meeting of the LDF, considering the unavailability of higher education options in relation with the increase in the success percentage of the SSLC (10th standard). The meeting requested the government to allot more batches of plus one in the existing schools, said Vaikom Visvan, the LDF Convener.
Mr Visvan said that there was a lack of availability of thousands of seats in the districts like Palakkad, Malappuram, Kannur, Kasargode etc. The LDF meeting has reportedly recommended opening at least 120 new schools to meet the requirements. The Malabar area including Thrissur requires 31,000 seats in the plus one. All other districts outside Malabar have more plus one seats than necessary. The LDF has reportedly suggested that the government should open more aided schools and consider unaided schools also if needed.
The Campus Front of India yesterday organized a parallel class near the District Collectorate in Malappuram in protest against the government inaction in providing enough higher education facilities for the students of Malabar. The Campus Front activists who marched from the Press Club area carrying benches and black-boards were stopped by the police near the Collectorate. The activists then placed the benches and black-boards in the road and began the parallel class. The government is responsible to answer to the people for jeopardizing the future of 10000s of students, said Ajmal Ismail, state president, while inaugurating the class. The first lesson ‘Lesson One: Ignoring Malabar’ was handled by state general secretary CA Raoof. The police arrested the activists after one hour and later released them on bail.
A special education package should be introduced for the educational development of Malabar including Malappuram, said T Arifali, state Amir of the Jamat e Islami, at the Malabar Educational Rights Conference organized by the SIO in Malappuram on Friday. Both the LDF and the UDF have failed in providing the necessary educational facilities in Malabar. The people of Malabar can’t be fooled again by allowing some colleges and courses in the self-financing sector alone. He also called for a joint struggle to end the ignorance of Malabar by the successive governments. An open apology is needed as the necessary facilities could not be arranged even though a majority of the Education Ministers in the state was from Malabar or minority communities, opined UP Yahya Khan, state secretary of the ISM (Ittihadu Shubbanil Mujahideen). The political leadership of Kerala is viewing the enlightenment of Malabar with fear, opined CK Abdul Azeez, leader of the People’s Democratic Party.
When the higher secondary results came out, 1.33 lakh students were qualified for higher studies in the northern districts of Kasargode, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Palakkad and Thrissur. However, there are only about half lakh seats for higher studies in the Calicut and Kannur universities. That means, about 80,000 students will have to go for indirect methods of education.
The lack of adequate facilities for higher education has now become a grave problem for Malabar. The area was earlier backward in education. But now Malabar is coming forward but they have no enough opportunities. Same is the case of the number of seats in higher secondary also. Around 2.35 lakh students have passed the 10th standard in Malabar but nearly half a lakh of students will not be able to study in the higher secondary, polytechnic, vocational higher secondary institutions etc in Malabar. The government increases the number of seats every year but the increase is not in conformity with the increase in the number of students passing exams.