Text books to be distributed before June 1 next year

Thiruvananthapuram: Education Minister C. Raveendranath informed the Assembly on Monday that steps have been taken to ensure that textbooks reached students by June 1 from next academic year.

He was responding to a question from James Mathew (CPIM).

The text books, the Minister said, will be in three parts to be distributed in three intervals before each of the three terms from next academic year.

Technical up gradation of schools will be implemented from first to 12th grade in a phased manner in the next five years. Initial emphasis will be on higher secondary classes, he said.

The Government, Mr. Raveendranath said, will take measures to make Government schools more attractive by providing free lunch, uniforms and text books from 1st to 8th grades. Free skill development programs, free coaching in communicative English and mother tongue, hitech infrastructure, bio diversity parks and intra-inter connectivity are among other measures proposed by the Government. The teacher centred pedagogy will give way to child centered teaching methods.

The Minister said that 40 schools in aided sector are facing threat of closure while no Government school face such a situation.

40000 title deeds distributed
Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan, in reply to the question raised by V. D. Satheeshan (INC), said that 29875 families had been given three cents of land under Zero Landless Kerala Programme to help them build homes.

The Minister  said in a written reply that Rs. 7,68,26,820 had been sanctioned in this regard during 2012 -13 to 2016 of which Rs. 1,67,29,918 was disbursed to district collectors and ILDM directors to conduct ‘pattaya melas’. So far, 40905 pattayams have been distributed under this programme.

In response to a question on the irregularities on fixing fair price of land, the Minister replied that the period to submit appeal for reconsidering the fair price fixed by the Government had been extended by one year.

Immunisation
Minister for Health and Social Welfare K. K. Shylaja  said that statistics on immunisation rates of children in the State in the year 2014-15 showed that 52284 children had not been immunised. Their number was the highest in Malappuram district where 20050 children are not immunized. The lowest number of non-immunised children was in Pattanamthitta district (659). The numbers for Palakkad, Kozhikode are 4455 and 5237 respectively.

The Health Minister informed the House that awareness programs would be strengthened to improve participation in immunization programs.