Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 6
Reckoning Promise
A CRITICAL VIEW OF KERALA’S ADVANTAGE
IN EDUCATIONAL CAPABILITY
1. Introduction
As concluded in the previous chapter, it would be a disservice to objective
analysis, if one were to take an unqualifiedly admiring view of the so-called
'Kerala Model': some tendency toward the 'panegyric' mode of appraisal can,
indeed, be found in the scholarship on the State's development experience.
And, while this may be understandable because Kerala presents such a stark
contrast to the rest of the country, it is also true that an uncritical appraisal
can swiftly hit the region of dwindling marginal returns to knowledge. Certain
emerging areas of concern – horizontal inequities, high levels of morbidity,
mental distress, alcoholism and increasing lifestyle diseases – have already
been pointed out. In this chapter and the succeeding one, we make an
attempt to take a somewhat more balanced view of the Kerala experience, by
focusing on issues of both `promise’ and `caution’. Under the first category,
we take a critical view of the undeniably huge human and social asset of
education, which Kerala has succeeded in building over the years, stressing
on the possible deficiencies, future potentialities and exploitable strategies
for further progress of this dimension of human development. This is the
concern of the present chapter. In the following chapter, we focus on some
cautionary aspects of Kerala’s development experience.