Kerala’s Malabar Region Will Face The Plus One Seat Crisis This Year Too

The plus one seat crisis in Malabar is expected to haunt the 10th pass students from Kerala’s Malabar region this year too. The students who passed the SSLC examination in Kerala’s Malappuram district is facing the question of plus one admission as there are not enough seats available for the students.

There are 85 government higher secondary schools and 88 aided higher secondary schools in Malappuram district, and there are 839 batches in both. Average number of students in each class is believed to be 50. As such, 41,950 plus one seats are actually in the district in the public sector. The total number of 10th passers this year is 79,730 (the number will increase when CBSE results are out). The number of the seats available in government aided schools are 59,690. Which means there are the shortage of over 20,040 seats in Malappuram alone. There is a shortage of 37,780 plus one seats in whole. It is pertinent to note that the shortage is after considering the 30 percentage increase in the seats for the schools in Malabar region.

There is a shortage of 7,979 seats in Palakkad, 5,321 seats in Kozhikode and 4,068 seats in Kasaragod. In total, Malabar region will face shortage of 41,230 plus one seats.

There are 2790 VHSE (Vocational Higher Secondary Education) seats in the district, and ITI (Industrial Training Institute) seats are 1124. There are 1360 Polytechnic seats . That means the number of study opportunities in the public sector other than plus one is 5274. Still there is a shortfall of 32, 506 seats. In lieu of allocating additional batches to meet this shortfall, the government has been increasing seats by 30% in each batch in higher secondary and 20% in aided for several years. A class of 50 students has 65 students.

While the southern districts of Kerala have 30 to 50 students in a class, Malabar districts including Malappuram, 65 people have to be crammed inside a class room. Now even if 65 people are crowded in a class after allowing a 30 percent increase, tens of thousands will still remain without seats in Malappuram district. 32,506 children are left without a seat despite using other higher education systems. There will be 10,650 plus one seats in government aided sector through increase. 21,856 higher education seats are still not available in Malappuram district.

Needless to say, private educational systems, which require fees to study, are out of reach for the commoners. Most of the seats to the private or unaided system has only 11,275 seats and most of it are empty due to the issue of money. Even if the seats are fully utilised, there would still be shortage of 10,581 seats in the Malappuram district alone. It is to note that this situation prevails while government aided schools in southern districts of Kerala have empty seats.

(with inputs from agencies and reports)