The school education system in Kerala is well developed. However, the level of its performance is considered poor. The articles included in this volume report the results of a few micro-level studies on the factors of educational growth and performance as well as of a few experiments for improving the quality of education in schools. The studies have looked into home-related, school-related, and community-related factors. Some of them had an action component too.

Of the several factors identified, intervention by the local public and institutions is found the most important. In areas in which such intervention has been strong, educational performance is observed to be relatively of a high order. Apart from interventions, there are other internal factors that determine performance: Infrastructure, school leadership, teachers, methods of teaching, evaluation, etc. However, it is possible to improve these internal factors also through external, local-level interventions.

Infrastructure, which includes school premises, buildings, playgrounds, furniture, laboratory, library, latrine, and drinking water facilities, is found adequate in most of the schools. There is of course great scope for improvement. Schools in Kerala have, in general, well-qualified and experienced teachers. However, the intensity of involvement of teachers in their duties varies with the schools.

Performance levels of students are low in general at the different stages of school.

The majority of parents pay scant attention to the curricular and extra-curricular activities in schools. They are unaware of the importance of active intervention in school affairs by associations of parents.

The vast majority of the teachers are of the view that the curricula, syllabi, and prescribed textbooks for the various stages of school education in Kerala are inappropriate or irrelevant.

Methods of evaluation of the performance of students require improvement; at present, evaluation gives undue importance to the memorising ability of students. Remedial teaching, special tuition, and greater attention to students with learning disabilities are practised in some schools with great success.

Local-level leaders and people’s representatives are found grossly ignorant about the functioning of schools in their localities. Even those who have some degree of awareness are interested only in promoting the physical facilities of schools.

Experiments in a few schools show that intervention by local organisations can improve curricular and extra-curricular performance levels of schools. This is possible even in government schools in which students come from poor and educationally backward households, teaching is indifferent, and infrastructural facilities are meagre.

Interventions in educational matters by progressive local elements of socio-religious movements have triggered off educational expansion in conservative communities and backward regions. Localities that experienced such interventions in the past have forged ahead of their counterparts and the process is still on.

Educational development schemes imposed from outside are not enough for spreading education in an indigent and indolent society. Levels of awareness about, and utilisation of, such schemes remain low even after half-a-century of experiment, as is in the case of the tribesfolk of Wayanad. Success in implementation of the schemes would only follow elimination of the basic socio-cultural and economic impediments to development and change in attitudes on the part of the target communities.