UNESCO - EFA Global Monitoring Report

Box 4.1. The Kerala ‘model’



A major lesson from the Kerala experience, notable in India for having closed the gender gap in primary education by 2001, is the important role played by the state, and by enlightened leadership. As early as 1881, the Maharaja of Travancore had declared: ‘No civilized government can be oblivious to the great advantages of popular education, for a government which has to deal with an educated population is by far stronger than one which has to control ignorant and disorderly masses. Hence education is a twice blessed thing – it benefits those who give it and those who receive it.’ From an early stage the royal states of Travancore and Cochin – both part of modern-day Kerala – viewed education as an important factor in modernization and development. The spread of education and the egalitarian ethic were mutually supportive forces. The state, for its part, invested in		village libraries and night schools in order to sustain literacy and learning. The role of Christian missionaries, who set up schools in which deprived groups were given educational opportunities, was also important. The expansion of employment opportunities in the public sector, with no institutional or social barriers to female participation, meant that education provided women with an important means of participating in the public arena. In this traditionally matrilineal society, women in Kerala did not face the social barriers that typified many other Indian states. Although by the 1950s the matrilineal family system had disappeared in Kerala, women retained good access to public employment and political representation. Levels of female literacy remain high.



Sources : Menon (1998); Jefferey (1992).

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