Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan and Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan traded arguments over the PM SHRI school scheme in the Assembly on Wednesday.
While the chief minister questioned why the previous government had signed an agreement linked to the programme, Vijayan, under whose tenure as chief minister the PM SHRI MoU was signed, insisted that the scheme had never been implemented in the state.
Replying to the three-day debate on the state Budget he presented, Satheesan said the previous government had approved and signed the agreement but later claimed it had merely kept the scheme in abeyance.
"The previous government gave the green signal and signed the agreement. You approved it. Why did you sign it? Was it only to keep it in abeyance? Was it signed merely to freeze its implementation," he asked.
Vijayan responded that the PM SHRI scheme had not been implemented in Kerala because the Left government had decided to put it on hold.
"We took a considered and legally sound decision that it need not be implemented. After that decision was made, it has not been implemented, and even now it remains unimplemented. We didn't move ahead with its implementation," he said.
Vijayan said the agreement had been signed while the state was trying to secure more than Rs 1,500 crore due under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, even as Kerala maintained its opposition to the National Education Policy (NEP).
"There had been no change in that stand. We were not prepared to adopt that policy, nor were we implementing PM SHRI as part of it," he said, adding that the implementation had later been frozen and had remained so for eight months.
Satheesan, however, said two questions remained unanswered -- why the agreement was signed in the first place and why no formal communication had been sent to the Centre stating that Kerala would not implement the scheme.
The chief minister also reiterated the government's stand on PM SHRI.
"Our position is clear.. we will not allow any interference with Kerala's curriculum freedom. The selection of schools will remain the responsibility of the State Government, and we will not permit the Central Government to dictate or alter the curriculum or syllabus. We will not agree to any negotiation on these matters," he said.
"We will not allow any changes to the syllabus either. We will not agree to any negotiation on these matters. The decision on schools will also be ours," he added.
The CM said that the ministerial subcommittee had been constituted to examine the matter while reaffirming the state's commitment to protecting its control over curriculum and school selection.
The PM SHRI (PM Schools for Rising India) scheme is a centrally sponsored initiative aimed at developing selected schools as model institutions in line with the National Education Policy, 2020.