The State government has accorded administrative sanction for an action plan comprising projects worth ₹99.95 crore that will be spearheaded by the Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC). The package, meant for the 2022-23 fiscal, is bound to provide impetus to the higher education modernisation initiatives of the advisory body.
The allocation, the highest since the council’s inception in 2007, is reflective of the KSHEC’s role in the government’s plans to overhaul higher education in the State. It usually receives a budgetary allocation of ₹16 crore.
According to Higher Education Minister R. Bindu, the council’s initiative to form an e-Journal consortium of universities and the ongoing digital enablement scheme ‘Let’s Go Digital’ have received ₹20 crore each.
The proposed consortium is expected to provide all the State universities free access to e-journals. The rising cost of subscriptions to online resources such as Science Direct and Scopus has resulted in many universities deciding against renewing subscriptions. With such a move feared to affect education and research quality, the council had raised the proposal of forming the consortium.
The digital enablement scheme that is undertaken in association with Digital University Kerala is bringing the entire sector under an open-source learning management system. The MOODLE platform has already been operationalised in certain institutions.
The government has also earmarked ₹10 crore for the KSHEC-led digitisation of library resources and development of the Kerala Academic Library Network (KALNET). While the single unified search interface has brought the library resources of 11 universities, 147 libraries and 15 lakh titles under its ambit, steps are afoot to digitise rare collections to conserve and enable wide access.
Resource sharing
A Cluster of Colleges scheme is also on the anvil to foster sharing of institutional resources among colleges for better educational outcomes. The programme envisages common access to research laboratories, add-on courses and publications, and collaborations to organise seminars and cultural programmes. An allocation of ₹10 crore has been made for creating clusters in Kannur, Kozhikode and Palakkad.
The KSHEC’s ‘brain gain’ programme to develop a database on Keralite academic diaspora of scientists, social scientists, humanities experts, medical professionals and technocrats and utilising their services to create linkages with faculty and research institutions abroad has received an allocation of ₹5 crore.
The courses of UG and PG programmes will be revamped to implement outcome-based education in teaching, learning and evaluation. An allocation of ₹5 crore has been made for the purpose.
