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The Kerala government has decided not to sign the Union Government’s PM SHRI scheme, following a meeting held by state General Education Minister V Sivankutty with various student organisations in the state on Wednesday, June 25. The LDF Government cited the scheme’s requirement to implement various recommendations of the National Education Policy 2020 as the reason for its decision.
The PM SHRI (PM Schools for Rising India) scheme, launched by the Union government, aims to establish over 14,500 model schools across the country. These schools are intended to provide a range of learning experiences and ensure quality infrastructure and adequate resources for students. Apart from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have also declined to sign the memorandum of understanding (MoU) required to participate in the scheme.
The student organisations that attended the meeting included the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); the Kerala Students Union (KSU), affiliated with the Congress; the All India Students’ Federation (AISF); and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). All the organisations, except ABVP, expressed support for the state government’s decision to not implement the scheme.
Sivankutty also stated that Kerala had not received Rs 1,500 crore in central funds earmarked for the public education sector, although this amount was linked to the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and not directly to the PM SHRI scheme. In May, the Kerala government had announced its decision to approach the Supreme Court against the Union government’s move to withhold these funds.
“Since we are in a federal system, it is the state government’s prerogative to decide whether to sign or not. We will approach the court and raise our voice democratically,” Sivankutty said after the meeting.
The ABVP, which boycotted the meeting, later told the media that it had been convened only after their persistent protests. “In the meeting, the minister decided not to sign and refused to implement the NEP. Our society wants PM SHRI to be implemented in Kerala. We will continue our protest until the state government agrees to implement it. Now Kerala is losing Rs 1,500 crore because of this decision,” the ABVP representative said.