Trivandrum

My time in the capital city of the State of Kerala is coming to an end. Today I will meet the Chairman of the State Resource Centre – where I’ve been working this week – and also visit some Continuing Education Centres. Kerala is an interesting State with high social development indicators, particularly in health and literacy, but in a context of a low productive economy and high unemployment.
We’ve just finished a two-day workshop looking at the SRC programmes and how they might benefit from using open and distance learning methodologies. I’ve been working with the most educated and highly committed group of people. On staff, there are only 10 but we were joined by 15 local academics and subject experts who are part of the SRC extended team.
Their mandate was traditionally literacy training, but given that Kerala has reached about 95% literacy the demand for their courses is changing. We’ve been talking about how they might expand their offering of skills development programmes and also strengthen their extensive (4,000) team of volunteer Community Development Promoters.
Hopefully, there will also be time to squeeze in a little shopping! I’ve already bought some beautiful ‘shalwar kemise’ Indian printed and embroidered long dress, trouser and scarf ensemble … lovely colours and patterns. My colleagues took me to a huge 4-story clothing store with thousands of saris and fabrics and traditional clothes. I resisted the pressure to buy a sari but the shalwar kemise is perfect for me – very comfortable and hides a multitude of sins!