League communalising education sector, says SFI

The 31st state conference of the SFI which concluded here on Sunday elected 12 new faces to the 16-member secretariat, including a new president and secretary.

J S Shiju Khan is the new president and T P Bineesh the secretary. The 16-member secretariat consists of four vice-presidents K Sabeesh, Chintha Jerome, Sheetal Davis and R S Balamurali and four joint secretaries Dhanya Vijayan, K Rafeeq, M Shajar and P G Subidas. The other members of the secretariat are R Rahul, P Jiji, Aneesh M Mathew, Ribinsha, Dinesh Babu and Sarin Shashi.

One slot in the secretariat, representing Kollam district, has been left vacant and it will be filled later. Of the 16-member secretariat, only K Sabeesh, Chintha Jerome, Dhanya Vijayan and K Rafeeq are members of the previous secretariat of the SFI. The remaining 12 are new members. However, all the 16 members were members of the state committee of the SFI.

Both K V Sumesh and P Biju, the outgoing president and secretary, respectively, who were at the helm for two years and eight months stepped down at the SFI meet on Sunday.

It was explained at the meet that it was because of the Assembly elections and the CPM organisational elections and the state conference that the convening of the SFI conference was delayed. However, the four-day meet which witnessed discussions on the age limit for SFI membership saw to it that all of the secretariat members were below 26 years, sources said.

Later addressing mediapersons at the Town hall venue, Shiju Khan and Bineesh said that the office- bearers of the SFI were elected unanimously. They said that a 77-member state committee was also elected .

Asked about whether any age bar has been set for the membership in the SFI, Bineesh said that was not in the agenda of the meet. They said that the handling of the Education portfolio by the Muslim League has resulted in the politicisation of the department.

They said that all the heads of various departments under the League were from the Muslim League .After Education Minister Abdu Rabb assumed office,  all academic ruling committees were disbanded and nominated committees took their places.  The Office-bearers alleged that the public education system was being destroyed by sanctioning new CBSE and ICSE schools. The self-financing college sector is being handed over to communal and caste-based organisations.