Kerala higher education inching towards collapse, says Governor

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan on Tuesday lamented that the higher education sector in Kerala was inching towards a 'collapse,' forcing talent to leave the southern state.The governor's statement came in the wake of reports of alleged fake certificate cases and malpractices involving activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the ruling CPI(M), for securing admission in colleges and winning student union elections. "You becoming a member of a particular student organisation means you have a passport to do all kinds of illegal things", Khan told reporters.

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The Governor said the crime rate in Kerala was fortunately very low, but the tendency to take the law into your own hands is very high because "you feel that your union will protect you, your student union will protect you." Noting that the collapse of higher education is a more serious matter than the collapse of law and order, he lamented that "we are playing games with the future of our coming generations." "Unfortunately, we do not attach the kind of importance to education which we must," the governor said.

"If law and order collapses, we will suffer. If higher education collapses, our coming generations will suffer. So the situation is more serious. I feel, if you ask me personally, I say we are inching towards the collapse of the constitutional and legal machinery in the state as far as higher education is concerned."

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Criticising the kind of politics being played in the state, Khan said due to this, business and industry have been driven away from Kerala. "The talent of Kerala is being driven away... Because your participation can become possible only if you enjoy political patronage," he said. He said the whole world, except Kerala, was taking advantage of the talent of its people. Asked about the allegation that an SFI leader submitted a fake certificate to secure his admission for an M Com course in a college in Alappuzha district, Khan said he will seek clarification from the authorities concerned on where lapses occurred.