What happened
For years, Kerala's political establishment loudly opposed the Centre's PM SHRI scheme and the National Education Policy it promotes, objecting to what it saw as central encroachment on state education autonomy. In October 2025, the outgoing LDF government quietly signed the MOU for the scheme anyway — without Cabinet approval, without informing coalition partners, and without public announcement. When Chief Minister V D Satheesan took office and the matter came before the assembly, he explained the state's position with unusual candour: Kerala would continue with PM SHRI not out of conviction, but out of compulsion. The compulsion: approximately Rs 1,200 crore in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan funds that the Centre had made conditional on signing. Kerala has since written to the Centre with two conditions — no interference in the curriculum, and the state picks which schools participate — which preserves the ideological principles in writing. The Rs 1,200 crore is also preserved.