Higher education institutions in Kerala will give shape to a comprehensive student life cycle registry from next academic year.
The data so compiled will become an inherent component of the Kerala Resources for Education Administration and Planning (K-REAP) e-governance software that is being prepared to integrate the activities undertaken by all institutions.
The proposed enterprise resource planning software is aimed at automating and streamlining administrative, academic, human resource, financial, examination and other processes in universities and colleges to enhance service delivery and administrative efficiency.
It will include separate modules for activities, including admissions, academic administration, attendance, examinations, results, student information, human resources and asset management.
According to Sudheendran K., research officer on special duty, Higher Education Reforms Implementation Cell, who is coordinating the K-REAP project, all universities have currently computerised some of their core operations. However, such efforts have been largely fragmented with each department having separate systems and software. This has paved data duplication, redundancy and lack of a mechanism to streamline data flow.
As part of the data collection, the details of over 5 lakh students will be fed into the system in the first year. The entire process will be completed in three years.
Digitised study materials
Efforts are also being made to digitise study materials of undergraduate and postgraduate courses under the e-governance software. These will be made available through a dedicated module that will also provide a catalogue of recorded lectures. Students of each discipline will be able to choose the required materials from the collection prepared by the university and college faculty when the system is fully operational.
Dr. Sudheendran pointed out the design of the K-REAP software hinged on the ongoing curriculum reform. The proposed reforms, including the four-year undergraduate degree courses, will be incorporated in the system.
A monitoring committee chaired by Higher Education Minister R. Bindu has been constituted for the K-REAP project. A technical committee chaired by former Registrar of the University of Calicut C.L. Joshy and comprising the information technology directors of each university have been working on the software development.
