On Wednesday, 21 October 2026, Vijayadashami, Kerala Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan led a Vidyarambham ceremony at the MLA office in Paravur, Ernakulam district. The Hindu: he held the hands of about 25 children and guided them to write “Harishree” in Malayalam with an index finger on rice-filled platters. It is a ceremony that was held. It is not a school reform.

Those 25 are not the “hundreds” in the state. The Hindu writes, in the same article, that hundreds of children in Kerala stepped into formal learning, at temples, cultural institutions and schools. Those are two counts: the chief minister’s circle and the day across the state. They are not mixed.

Kerala9: families came from early morning, from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod, to the residence and the office in Paravur. The Hindu names the MLA office. ETV Bharat: the residence as well. Those are two places in the reporting, not two proven contradictory ceremonies treated as one.

At the Dakshina Mookambika temple in North Paravur and the Ernakulam Siva Temple, also The Hindu, arrangements were made for ezhuthiniruthu, the initiation. Writers, thinkers and politicians guided children into letters. No child is named here.

ETV Bharat: Governor Rajendra V. Arlekar took part in a ceremony at Lok Bhavan, and opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan received children at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram. That widens the day; it does not replace the chief minister’s ceremony and it is not a curriculum decree.

Vidyarambham, on Vijayadashami, is the custom of beginning letters, not the school year opened by statute. The children in the chief minister’s group remain unnamed.

Image: the Krishna temple at Kottayil Kovilakom, North Paravur, 25 November 2012, Goutham Mohandas, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. A temple in Paravur, not Wednesday’s MLA office.

Sources consulted: Children in Kochi begin formal learning on Vijayadashami as CM Satheesan leads event — The Hindu; Vijayadashami: Thousands Of Toddlers Take First Steps Into World Of Knowledge And Letters Across Keralam — ETV Bharat.