Reforms have not rectified some of the basic problems in the education sector, Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi has said.
He was addressing a meeting held here on Saturday by the Jawahar Darsana Vedi to felicitate students in the district who won A Plus grade in this year’s SSLC examinations.
“Kerala should not be a laboratory of educational reforms. Reforms should not be for the sake of reforms. Despite several reforms over the year, some of the fundamental problems in the sector remain. How can the standard of education be raised? What are the criteria for assessing quality? The issues are subjective.
“In any case, the government alone cannot raise the standard of education,” the minister said.
He said the most important aspect of education was to equip students with life skills and to empower them to face the realities of the world.
“Linguistic parochialism should be avoided. The reality is that a global citizen needs to learn English or French to have a successful career. Merely studying textbooks will not help students. They should keep themselves abreast of changes in the world,” he added.
Each achiever was presented a memento and a copy of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Letters from a Father to His Daughter’.
