THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite stiff opposition from the higher secondary teachers’ unions, the ‘Directorate of General Education’ has been established. The state government issued the order on Saturday. K Jeevan Babu, the former DPI, has been appointed as the Director of General Education.
He will be heading the school level as a single unit from primary to higher secondary. With the appointment of Jeevan Babu, the post of higher secondary director and DPI will cease to exist. The state government went ahead with unifying the schools under one administration even after the meetings with higher secondary teachers’ unions failed to arrive at a consensus.
Though General Education Secretary A Shahjahan convened a meeting on May 20, the teachers’ union refused to accept the government’s suggestions. In the meeting held last week, Minister C Raveendranath had recommended appointing a single director for HS and HSS, one exam commissioner, unifying the offices at schools with the higher secondary section, retaining DEO, AEO offices, making headmasters of HSS schools vice-principals.
The government is likely to implement three of the suggestions in the first phase. As per the government’s proposal, the examinations till the higher secondary level will be undertaken by ‘Pareeksha Bhavan’ instead of the Higher Secondary Board of Examinations.
At present, Pareeksha Bhavan is only looking after SSLC examinations. The government’s action was based on the Khader commission report. The Khader commission was appointed by the government earlier as the Central assistance would be available only if high school and higher secondary sections are unified under one authority.
The system will subsume the pre-primary, lower primary, upper primary, high school and higher secondary levels as part of ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education.