Kollam: Education activists, who have vowed to protect public schools, have undertaken a novel campaign by publishing names of teachers and politicians, who send their wards to private schools in East Kallada panchayat, near here. Call it an attempt to expose the double standard by public schoolteachers and political activists, including panchayat members, on their public assertions about protecting public education.
Flex banners put up in front of nine schools and at several junctions in the panchayat publicize detailed statistics of teachers and public workers, who have enrolled their children in private schools. The campaign has been initiated by ‘activists for the protection of general education’.
“Let the protection of general education be initiated by schoolteachers themselves. We have published statistics of teachers and public workers whose words and deeds do not match. By seeing the pattern of statistics in our small village alone, we will prove why general education is in peril,” Mr K.V. Sunil Kumar, electrical engineer and pro-CPM Kerala Sastra Sahitya Prarishad activist, who initiated the novel mode of protest, told DC.
There are three higher secondary schools within the seven- kilometre radius in East Kallada with a total of 108 teachers, of which only 24 have their children studying in Government schools. Only 6 out of a total 15 panchayat members have their children in Government schools. However, all five teachers at NCM LP School in Muttom send their children to public schools.
“Some politicians have approached us, saying they would transfer their wards to public schools in the new academic year. Let us see how many of them keep word. The quality of education will improve if teachers enroll their children in schools they work. This will help them improve their own teaching and raise the overall quality of education,” said Mr Kumar. It is an irony that these teachers are “protected” in their schools by the Government during division fall owing to insufficient numbers of students.
