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General Education Minister V. Sivankutty on Wednesday stated that the government has consulted the Advocate General to assess the legal implications of the Cabinet’s decision to put on hold its PM-SHRI accord with the Centre, aimed at securing federal funds for school education. Mr Sivankutty’s statement assumed political significance against the backdrop of reports that the Communist Party of India (CPI) had signalled impatience with the “administrative delay” in communicating the crucial cabinet decision to the Central government. The government had hastily backtracked on the controversial accord after the CPI threatened to withdraw its Ministers from last week’s cabinet, accusing the government of keeping the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the ministry in the dark about the contentious decision. In a public break with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], which injected an amount of tautness into coalition relations, the CPI pointed out that the Governor should be the signatory to the agreement and not a bureaucrat dispatched “surreptitiously” to Delhi to ink the accord. The CPI ideologically opposed the accord because it claimed that signing on to PM-SHRI was tantamount to an implicit nod to the “reactionary and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) inspired” National Education Policy (NEP). Moreover, the CPI said enlisting Kerala in the PM-SHRI undermined the Left national line against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Central Government’s insidious bid to “centralise, commercialise, communalise and saffronise school education”. Mr Sivankutty said legal procedures and Constitutional questions informed the State’s transactions with the Centre. “The State could not conduct them at the drop of a hat”, he said. Mr Sivankutty chairs the cabinet sub-committee tasked with reviewing the State’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Centre regarding the release of PM-SHRI and SSK funds. The sub-committee comprises ministers representing key allies, including the CPI. Mr Sivankutty said the sub-committee, which was yet to convene, would examine whether the MoU had contravened the LDF’s line on PM-SHRI and NEP. He said that the interests of 45 lakh students attending government and government-aided schools were the government’s priority. “Kerala has to secure the ₹1,402 crore statutory federal funding the Centre owes the State without strings attached or by compromising the government’s secular and progressive public education line”, he added. Mr Sivankutty said the Centre’s non-recurring fund allocations for education were overdue. He would flag the issue, along with a range of other topics concerning Kerala’s school education, when he meets Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on November 9 in Delhi.
