Higher education: State wants Centre to allocate more funds

Thiruvananthapuram: Promotion of multi-disciplinary institutions and allocation of more funds towards enhancing gross enrolment ratio in higher education sector are among the major points which the state government would take up with the Centre in its response to the draft national education policy.
Kerala state higher education council, which held detailed deliberations on the merits and demerits of the new policy, has ratified a 15-point resolution for the state government to share with the Centre.
“Problems of higher education in Kerala need special attention in the overall context of the NEP 2019. Changes to this large system must be done in consultation with those who are at the centre of this process of knowledge production and reproduction, namely the state government, universities, teachers and students,” said the resolution.
Asking the Union goverment to review the 60:40 fund distribution formula between the Centre and state, the resolution wanted the Centre to increase its share.
“Kerala has made substantial progress in education during the last two centuries. With universal literacy, near total retention at school level and gross enrolment ratio (GER) of 36% of the relevant age group in higher education, Kerala is far ahead of most states in the country in terms of access to education at all levels. The achievements are severely undermined by the rapidly escalating unmet demand for higher education, unwieldy expansion of the self-financing sector, and the weakening of the university system.To achieve the target of 50% GER in higher education, as envisaged in the NEP 2019, larger devolution of funds from the Centre in the higher education sector is necessary for the state of Kerala. The present fund distribution formula of 60:40 in the case of RUSA between the Centre and the states may be suitably modified to meet the growing demand for higher education in a state like Kerala,’’ it said.
Pitching for the promotion of more multi-disciplinary institutions, the council’s resolution said the real challenge would be nurturing and strengthening universities without destroying their diversity by forcing them into a straitjacket standardized normative frame.
“To ensure quality and access and to quench the growing demand for higher education, higher education Institutions (HEIs) of national importance in teaching and research of multidisciplinary in nature have to be established in states like Kerala by the Union government, where there is comparatively less central investment in terms of the national average,” the resolution said.
The state would ask the Centre to ensure that the whopping amount promised for research activities are being expended for socially-productive research.
It would also ask for adequate representation of academics from all disciplines and regions in the country in the governing board of the NRF which will be headed by the Prime Minister.