New Delhi: Kerala government plans to extend its maximum support to the education of SC and ST students.
On September 19, Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala, introduced the initial stage of a model plan with an agenda to modify and ease the education of candidates falling under categories of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. Due to the lack of resources amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of students from these categories are facing issues related to education and schooling. Inadequate amenities at home make it difficult for them to cope up with their studies.
Emphasizing on these problems, the government extends financial support of Rs. 2 lakhs to the people of the SC group to arrange a space adjoining their house, to study. Besides, the government will also provide study materials and gadgets, once the room is built.
“Today marks the inauguration of the completion of 12,250 study rooms across the state.
An additional 3,750 study rooms will be completed this year. Also, 8,500 study rooms will be created by 2021. This would be a model project for the entire country,” said the Chief Minister.
The project also aims at establishing around 500 groups (public) study rooms for ST students. 250 rooms have been built so far by utilizing public spaces like community halls. Each classroom can accommodate 30 candidates.
Study rooms for SC and ST students
The design of the scheme is domestic. The Rs 2 lakh is paid to members of the Scheduled Caste community to set up a study room adjacent to the house, and study materials, including a computer, are to follow once the room is completed, the Chief Minister said, according to a PTI report carried by Onmanorama. Each completed room is a permanent addition to the home, outlasting the emergency that prompted it.
For Scheduled Tribe students the model is communal rather than domestic: community study rooms seating up to 30, set up in public facilities such as community halls, with 250 of a planned 500 already completed. Taken together, the announced phases for SC households add up to 24,500 rooms: the 12,250 standing, 3,750 more this year and 8,500 by 2021, beside the 500 community rooms planned for ST students. At 30 seats a room, the community target alone would give study space to up to 15,000 students at a time.
Students from fifth to eighth grade, belonging to the SC category, do not get much educational help. However, the CM highlighted that every child receives the help of Rs. 2000 annually and currently, almost 1,20,000 SC children are availing this benefit. Apart from this, the government has also directed to release up to Rs. 25 lakhs for SC candidates admitted to PG programs in the top universities across the world.
The CM said, “The lump-sum grant and stipend for SC/ST students has been increased by 50 percent. A scheme has been started for Medical-Engineering Entrance Examination coaching for 1,000 SC students who have completed Plus Two,”
As per his statements, under the Scheduled Caste Development Department, the state government has worked upon various ways to modernise 44 ITIs. New sections were built for 15 ITIs. Moreover, meals, in the form of breakfast and lunch, are also provided to children studying here.
“Also, steps have been taken to provide free training to 300 people in the Civil Service Academy under the state government,” Vijayan added.
In times like these, financial support from the government will be a boon for the students belonging to economically weaker sections of the society. Economic potential shouldn’t be a barrier in the process of learning to ensure the country’s brighter future.
Pinarayi Vijayan: Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste schemes in one package
The study rooms arrived wrapped in a broader list. The annual help of Rs 2,000 reaching about 1,20,000 SC children, the Rs 25 lakh support for SC candidates admitted to postgraduate programmes at top universities abroad, the 50 per cent rise in the lump-sum grant and stipend, entrance coaching for 1,000 students and free civil service training for 300 were announced together, alongside the Scheduled Caste Development Department’s work on 44 industrial training institutes, including new sections at 15 of them and daily meals for students.
The package was announced while the pandemic kept students at home, which is what gives the inadequate-amenities problem its force. The National Statistical Office’s 2017-18 education survey, summarised by the Ministry of Statistics, found that only about 24 per cent of Indian households had internet access and barely 4 per cent of rural homes a computer. Kerala’s answer treats the household, not the school, as the unit of help: a room, then equipment.
Since then: laptops followed the study rooms
The model project turned out to be the first instalment of a longer programme for SC and ST students. On 25 October 2021, Pinarayi Vijayan launched the Vidyakiranam project by handing the first laptop to a Class 5 student at GHS Vazhamuttam in Thiruvananthapuram, the first of 45,313 laptops for schoolchildren from the two communities, PTI reported.
The first batch, drawn from the KSFE and Kudumbashree Vidyashree scheme, was worth Rs 81.56 crore at Rs 18,000 a laptop including tax, with a three-year warranty and KITE’s free software preloaded, and distribution was to be completed in November. Schools and parents were to sign a memorandum of understanding before each machine was handed over, and the laptops went to children who had requested them on the Sampoorna school portal.
Later phases were to reach around 3.5 lakh SC and ST students in classes 1 to 9. The government’s release described Vidyakiranam as the first scheme of its kind in the country for enabling SC and ST students to study online. The study rooms of 2020 and the laptops of 2021 address the same gap: the one the pandemic exposed in students’ homes.
