Enough Plus One seats in schools in State: Sivankutty

Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty has said 1,13,476 Plus One seats are vacant across the State after the main allotment process.

Addressing mediapersons in Kozhikode on Saturday, he said 71,258 seats remained unfilled in the aided sector while 87,659 students had applied for the next round of allotment. There were many thousand seats vacant in the unaided sector as well.

The Minister’s claim comes against the backdrop of State-wide protests by UDF-affiliated organisations for more Plus One seats on the ground that the available seats were not enough to meet the Students’ demand.

Mr. Sivankutty spoke on various contemporary topics such as the revised mid-day meal scheme and the ‘Samagra Gunamenma Padhathi’ to ensure quality of education.

He said the mid-day meal menu in schools was fixed based on detailed calorie calculation, cost calculation, and the availability of funds by a committee appointed for the purpose. It had found that the selected food items could be prepared within the allotted budget, the Minister said.

He suggested that schools could seek the support of local bodies, CSR funds of companies, PTA, alumni and the general public to provide millet breakfast to students and that around 2,200 schools were doing so at present.

Mr. Sivankutty cited the need to extend the project to more schools. He also suggested setting up vegetable gardens in schools to reduce the purchase of vegetables.

The training for heads of institutions in the public sector under the ‘Samagra Gunamenma Padhathi’ would be completed by July 15 and the cluster-level training involving all teachers would begin by July 19, he said.

“The project aims setting a 30% cut-off mark for students in written examinations in classes 5 to 9 and training them separately to ensure that they adhere to the quality that the syllabus offers,” he said.

The Minister said the government had decided to prepare special textbooks for students in schools for the hearing impaired, which would be released on June 30.