Kerala's Education Reforms Fail to Address Crumbling Schools and Declining Learning

As of August 2025, Kerala's general education sector, long celebrated for its progressive policies, is at a crossroads. Faced with crumbling infrastructure, declining enrollment, and slipping academic standards, the state's education department has rolled out a series of reforms, including changing school lunch menus, proposing to shift summer vacations to the monsoon, and now, a plan to eliminate backbenches from classrooms.

However, these reforms have drawn criticism from experts who argue they are little more than distractions from the systemic crises plaguing the sector. The timing of these proposals, coming in the final year of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government's tenure, has raised eyebrows, as schools grapple with unsafe buildings collapsing during monsoons and studies reveal worsening learning outcomes.

The numbers paint a sobering picture. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 revealed that enrollment among children aged 6-14 plummeted from 64.5% in 2022 to just 44.5% in 2024 – a staggering 20% decline. This represents a steady exodus from public education, with enrollment dropping from 48% in 2018. More troubling still are the learning outcomes, with mathematical skills nosediving. Among Class III students, the percentage capable of performing subtraction dropped from 32.7% to 26.9%, while for Class V students, division skills collapsed from 20.2% to a mere 12.4% – nearly halving in just two years.

As the government's focus shifts to seating arrangements and vacation schedules, critics argue that the real priorities should be addressing the crumbling infrastructure and reversing the alarming decline in learning outcomes. Whether Kerala's reforms will prove transformative or merely cosmetic may ultimately depend on the government's willingness to tackle the harder, less photogenic work of rebuilding its educational foundation from the ground up.