There will be one lakh women enrolling for class 10 and plus 2 in Kerala as soon as the New Year starts. Kudumbashree workers who missed out on their formal education would get an opportunity to go back to school. Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority (KSLMA) is arranging the classes in two thousand self governing institutes, each of which will have 50 students for class 10 and 50 for higher secondary (+2).
The project, called Sama, was inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday. “The idea is ‘women empowerment through education’,” says KSLMA Director PS Sreekala.
Kudumbashree is a poverty eradication and women empowerment programme that’s been successfully implemented by the state government for more than 20 years.
“There are 45 lakh Kudumbashree workers in the state now and many of them have either dropped out before Class 10, or if they completed Class 10, they had no means to continue studies afterward. When we thought of providing education and equivalency classes, there was a good response from the women. It would bring them to the mainstream. In the first phase, there will be one lakh women,” says Sreekala.
Women who have finished their class 7 exams qualify to join the Class 10 studies. They should be at least 17 years old. Women joining the higher secondary classes should be at least 22 years old. There would be classes at level 4 too. The syllabus adopted would be the one followed by the Literacy Mission.
“School teachers, or retired teachers or those who are qualified to teach (B.Ed graduates) would be taking the classes. There will also be a class coordinator who would be paid by the Literacy Mission,” says Sreekala.
The class fee and exam fee would be taken care of by Kudumbashree. The last day to register for the classes is December 31, 2019.