Kerala needs institutions of excellence, says T.P. Sreenivasan

Updated on: Wednesday, October 12, 2011

What Kerala needs in the higher education sector is a clutch of institutions of excellence, including an Indian Institute of Technology. Even the Union government is today seized of the need for Kerala to have an IIT, vice-chairman-designate of the Kerala State Higher Education Council T.P. Sreenivasan said here on Tuesday.

He was talking to The Hindu after Chief Minister Oommen Chandy signed on the file appointing the former Ambassador as the second vice-chairman of the Council.

For many years now, the universities in Kerala have not got the recognition they deserve. This, in spite of the fact that they have been producing graduates of a quality equivalent to that of any top university. One should keep in mind that Malayali candidates who emerge successful in the civil services examinations or other such tough examinations are often the products of the State's universities, he pointed out.

As with other States, Kerala too today faced the challenges of globalisation. Partly as a response to this, the growth of technical education in the State has been phenomenal. That said, the dramatic growth has also given rise to a situation where the quality of these institutions is not uniform. This is something that has to be tackled.

The ‘Kerala Model' of development has attracted appreciation both within the country and abroad. What is perhaps intrinsic to that model is the attention given to the social and cultural sectors in general and to education in particular despite a not-so-high economic growth.

In reply to a question, Mr. Sreenivasan said one of the objectives of the Higher Education Council was to address the question of quality and of a certain commonality of policy of universities in Kerala. The first council led by historian K.N. Panikkar had begun work on this front. “But four and a half years is too short a period to complete such a huge task. I will try to take forward that work, of course without in any way impinging on the autonomy of our universities,” he said.

The term of the first Council had come to an end in March 2011. On September 15 — the last date of the extended term of the council –when the government did not reconstitute the Council, Dr. Panikkar and his team demitted office.

Kerala needs institutions of excellence, says T.P. Sreenivasan

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