Thiruvananthapuram, April 4 Kerala Minister V Sivankutty said on Saturday that once Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes his roadshow in the state capital, he should ask the Union Education Minister to make textbooks for students in classes 8, 9, and 11 available for the next academic year in Kendriya Vidyalayas in the state.
Sivankutty, the state's general education minister and LDF candidate from the Nemom Assembly constituency, said that according to news reports, the social studies textbook for class 8 and the revised textbooks for classes 9 and 11, for the next academic year, have not yet reached the Kendriya Vidyalayas.
He said this points to a serious failure on the part of the central government.
The minister also said that it was a setback for those who had mocked the Kerala government for delivering textbooks for the next academic year even before the schools were closed.
He claimed that the central government was also unable to make available the revised National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks on time.
Sivankutty said that those who are unable to deliver books even to the Navodaya and Kendriya Vidyalayas, which are run by the central government, are alleging there is a lack of development in Kerala.
He said that it is the right of the children to get textbooks for free, and that this right is being denied to them due to the "unnecessary delay" in the distribution of books by the Centre.
"There is no doubt that this slow pace of the Centre will affect the education of children," he added.
The minister, in his post, urged the central government to take strong measures to ensure that textbooks are made available to students as soon as possible.