A few days back I noticed these giant bats flying over my parents home in Ernakulam. They were coming from around the High Court area and headed in a south easterly direction. I had no clue what kind of bats these were, but had a hunch that they were probably coming from the Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary. After a little digging around on the web, I had the answer.

These bats are called the Indian Flying Fox, the largest bats in the world, and they reside at Mangalavanam.

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This report was mainly born out of curiosity to understand the state of public education in Kerala. Even though current data was not available, I was able to get some stats from back in 2006 via the Kerala Department of General Education website.

Once I had this data, next I wanted to compare it against public education in Karnataka, which seems to have or at least there is a general perception that they have progressed more in the last 10 years. I wanted to see if the claimed progress has gone beyond Bangalore, and to me a good indicator of that is the state of public education.

Even though I was able to get the stats from the Karnataka Department of Education website, pretty much like Kerala, they only had stats from back in 2006. The report you see above is the comparison, and here are some of my observations:

Obervations

1. Public High School Education for both states end at grade 10, unlike private schools which go till 12th grade. This is something that needs to change so even public school kids get 12 years of education.

   Correction: Just learned that what used to be pre-degree offered by colleges in Kerala, is now integrated into schools as Higher Secondary Education(HSE). Which is great, so kids in Kerala are now receiving 12 years of education. I will have to dig up some stats on how many complete 12th now.

2. Kerala has a more efficient school system, with most kids making it through to high school and finishing high school (grade 10 12). There seems to be something strange about Karnataka, lot of students in UP but very few in High School(grade 10). So, I am not sure what’s going on in Karnataka.
3. I could not get a sense of the quality of education, both states have local SSLC boards. Maybe switching public schools to much better central boards like CBSE or ICSE might be better, and will put public school students at par with private school students.
4. Karnataka seems to have gone on a school building spree, there are a lot of schools, but they are not really educating a lot of kids till completion of high school. Could these low numbers be why they highlight literacy rate in Bangalore more?
5. Another area of drastic difference is the number of high school teachers, Kerala has 8 times more high school teachers than Karnataka. This could probably mean that either there is a shortage of high school teachers in Karnataka or not enough subjects are being taught.
6. Lack of current stats. The numbers I had to deal with are from back in 2006, and neither state has latest number on their websites. Also the presentation of the data is very poor. So, some of our brilliant/creative IT,web and visualization experts please volunteer and help these states get better at collecting and presenting data online.
7. And finally a call to action: people on the web in Kerala and Karnataka, please visit your local public schools and update us all with images, videos, audio, and reports on the state of education.

Data Source

Kerala: www.education.kerala.gov.in
Karnataka: karnatakaeducation.gov.in

Photos from yesterday’s Sree Krishna Jayanti on M. G. Road, Kochi

Stephen Colbert calls Shashi Tharoor to congratulate him on getting the Colbert Bump

Looks like they have disabled embedding. Here is the direct link Venu’s Song

A four part interview of Shahshi Tharoor on Amrita TV, provides a good malayalee perspective of Dr. Shashi Tharoor.

See Parts: 2, 3, 4

Shocking as it may seem at first, the conversation of the guys filming the encounter with the elephant, makes the whole incident hilarious.

Mukesh compares his view about Malayalam film Industry and its growth before and after the film Twenty-20.

Reading the following about Resul Pookutty made me watch Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Elipathayam” yesterday.

If Resul’s sound design captures the muddle of the crowded Mumbai city without getting overbearing, he recalls the moment in the Adoor Goplakrishnan’s film, ‘Elipathayam’, when the protagonist bites stone while having a meal of rice.

I have always heard about Elypathayam, and for some strange reason had this imagery of a mallu comedy in my mind and never had a chance or reason to watch it up until I read about it yesterday, after Resul Pookutty won the Oscar for sound mixing in Slumdog Millionaire.

This is a masterpiece movie, and an excellent example of movie as an art form. It’s slow but brilliantly crafted, and provides a fascinating insight into the older feudal system of Kerala. And, yes I did look out for that scene where the protagonist bites a stone in his rice, a scene which otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Watch movie on YouTube

“I wrote the script of ELIPPATHAYAM when I was going through a very painful period. I had to leave Chitralekha, which I had founded and built up over a long period of my youth. There were a lot of misunderstandings between friends and parting of ways. It was in 1979. I made ELIPPATHAYAM in 1981, the intervening period was a tormenting one in my life. It prompted me to look at myself incisively.”
- Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Read Rest of Interview – WARNING: SPOILER ALERT, read only after seeing the movie)