THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: School teachers should be instructed to give special attention to students so that they could understand their problems, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said. He was reviewing the General Education Rejuvenation Mission at a high-level meeting here on Monday. The Chief Minister accepted the suggestion to make teacher-student ratio 1:24 in primary schools, 1:29 in high schools, 1:28 in higher secondary schools and 1:14 in vocational higher secondary schools.
“Teachers should act as mentors of students. They should understand the behavioural changes in them. Some might have issues in their home. It is the teacher’s duty to understand and solve the issues by collecting details from them. It will reduce the mental stress of students to a greater extent. Similarly, a system should be in place to improve the level of children,” the Chief Minister said. Education sector in the state will become completely digital by October. Classrooms became hi-tech under the supervision of Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE). 4,752 high schools, HSSs and VHSEs were made hi-tech. Hi-tech labs have started functioning from Classes I to VII,” he said.
The Chief Minister directed that the mid-day meal programme for students should be properly monitored so that it could ensure meals for all beneficiaries. “Improvement of physical infrastructure of schools is progressing. The education sector in the state has registered major achievements compared to other states as per the survey conducted by the National Achievement Survey and Niti Ayog Survey. This should be sustained in the coming years,” he said.
General Education Minister C Raveendranath , Chief Secretary Tom Jose, Mission Co-ordinator Cheriyan Philip, Principal Secretary Jaithilak, General Education Secretary A Shahjahan, V S Senthil, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Director of General Education Jeevan Babu, KITE Vice-chairman Anvar Sadath, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyaan project director A P Kuttykrishnan and SCERT director J Prasad attended the meeting.