KOCHI: Finance minister Thomas Isaac, during his budget speech 2021-22, said the government focuses to make Kerala a knowledge economy. Isaac announced a slew of schemes and projects to promote the education sector of Kerala citing that the first step to knowledge economy is the strengthening of educational infrastructure. He also said that there is an inevitable need to strengthen the digital infrastructure in order to achieve growth in school as well as collegiate education.
Isaac said the prominence of Kerala’s higher education institution in national and international rankings needs to be urgently raised citing some of the main ranking including the Times Higher Education ranking. He said that the task is herculean and needs huge investment. The government intends to achieve the same level of success gained by the school education sector in higher education sector too.
Isaac said that 1000 teacher vacancies will be created in the varsities in Kerala and there will be 30 Centre of Excellence in the universities. The state government has spent Rs.2000 crore for the development of universities from KIIFB. The aim is to raise the NAAC accreditation grade of all institution to a minimum of 3.5.
500 postdoctoral fellowships called Nava Kerala Scholarship will be started to give beneficiaries upto Rs.1 lakh per month, which is “the highest by any state government in India”. Kerala Technical University, Medical University and Sree Narayana Open University will be allotted special funds for construction of new headquarters.
“Teacher vacancies allotted in Universities was 1881 but around 886 vacancies are still vacant. These vacancies would be filled urgently. Also, at least 150 new vacancies would be allotted. 10% seats to be increased in colleges to avail higher education to 3.5lakh more students,” he said.
In colleges, all classes will be digitized. Innovation is the key that the budget focusses and the Start Up Mission will nurture these innovations. 197 new courses will be allotted in colleges that get 'A' NAAC accreditation.