Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala General Education Minister V Sivankutty on Thursday said that 138 temporary additional plus one batches are being allotted in government schools in Malappuram and Kasaragod districts of the state.
Sivankutty said the additional batches were being allotted as many students in those two northern Kerala districts had not been enrolled after all the rounds of plus one (class 11) admissions were concluded.
He made the statement, regarding the allotment of new plus-one seats and batches, in the House under Rule 300 (statement by a minister on a matter of public importance) of the Kerala Legislative Assembly's Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business.
The additional batches would cost the state exchequer around Rs 14.9 crore.
The minister said that based on reports and recommendations by various regional committees, the state-level committee on the education requirements in the higher secondary sector for the academic year 2024-25 and the Director of General Education, a total of 120 batches -- 59 in Humanities and 61 in Commerce -- are going to be allotted in Malappuram district.
In Kasaragod, where there is a shortage of seats in various taluks, it has been decided to allot a total of 18 batches -- one in Science, 4 in Humanities and 13 in Commerce.
The minister further said in order to ensure that there was no shortage of seats, the government had in May ordered that 178 batches that were provisionally allocated in the last academic year will be retained and besides that there will be a 30 per cent marginal increase in seats in all government schools in the Malabar region.
Additionally, the government had also decided to marginally increase seats in all aided schools there by 20 per cent.
However, after all the admission rounds were over, it was found that there was a shortage of plus one seats in those two districts, he added.
The Left government has been facing flak over the alleged shortage of plus-one seats in schools in northern Kerala with the opposition accusing the state administration of failing to resolve the issue.
Opposition student outfits, mainly the Kerala Students Union (KSU) and the Muslim Students' Federation (MSF) have been staging protests across the state for some time, slamming the government over its failure to ensure enough seats for qualified students in Malappuram.
The Kerala government, on the other hand, had been claiming that there was no shortage of plus-one seats at all.
On June 25, the government decided to allot an additional plus-one batch in schools of Malappuram to resolve the northern district's seat shortage issue.
