Higher Education for the Future

The article aims at investigating the current scenario of internationalization of higher education (IoHE) in Kerala, particularly in the area of inbound student mobility. It analyses the issues of foreign students enrolled in different programmes across the state. The study includes the in-depth analysis of the current challenges faced by Kerala in the era of growing internationalization trends worldwide. Notably, these challenges encapsulate a larger picture of IoHE in India which makes this article relevant in a broader context. The conducted study enables further policy suggestions which may prove to be useful for the state authorities and lawmakers.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to be established in conjunction with the specificities of the regions to which they are supposed to belong. But over the years, the regional necessities based on its resourcefulness and demographic potential are seldom accounted for in their justifiable dissemination across the state. This article analyze (a) whether our HEIs are established by satisfying the needs of its geographical area and (b) whether the programmes offered by them have any mutual benefits to the regional populace and academic community. Various resource diversities are attached with every institution, in the context of contesting components of science and other academic disciplines. This study proposes a synergic model to facilitate the allocation of academic programmes and dissemination of institutions with 10 broad synergic bands, each incorporating various resource potentials available with every geographical niche. A total of 54 government arts and science colleges of the state have been geocoded and tagged with these bands, to find the institutional synergies with their surrounding resources. Although colleges capture synergy points ranging from two to nine, but only a few of the institutions are enriched with higher numbers of bands. The more synergy points the institution captures, the more will be its academic potential in terms of feasibility of programmes in consideration of sustainable development of the locality in which they are situated. This model is therefore an instrument for every institution and to self-evaluate its performance for the societal prosperity of their immediate neighbourhood.

As seen through the recommendations of University Education Commission (1949) and Education Commission (1964), till about National Policy on Education, 1986, as markers of educational discourses, the concern was to resist expansion, to guard against dilution of quality and standards of higher education and excellence and reputation of higher education institutions. Through 1980s, especially, during the post-1991 reform phase, the benchmarks in educational discourses shifted to survival in sub-optimal resources/facilities conditions in the context of progressive state retreat in funding higher education (HE). The private sector engagement in HE was hotly debated for and against in the discourses through the 1990s and after 2000; the concern was not just about the desirability, in the national bid for expansion and massification of HE, but about its regulation with respect to quality and standards. The Narayanamurthy Committee (Planning Commission, 2012) recommendations regarding corporate sector participation in HE turned out to be both a culmination of earlier trend and a forerunner of private sector’s domination in HE, with the cost burden shifting on to students, despite some strong advocacy in defence of public HE system, by Yashpal Committee (Department of Higher Education, 2009). The reality in the discourses of HE in India has been the drastic shifts of concerns for aspects and parameters of quality and standards of HE and HEIs to many emerging compulsions through the decades.

Policies and programmes of higher education play an important role to make accomplishment of the higher education objectives. If the policies and schemes of government for higher education has a good strategy to implement them, then only they will accomplish the objectives of higher education which in turn will bring progress and quality education. In this article various policies and schemes of government for higher education are analysed and discussed. For this purpose, documentary analysis of various government documents, such as annual reports of Manipur University, acts and statutes of Manipur University, annual reports of Directorate of Higher Education, Manipur, college statistics published by College Development Council, Manipur University and State Higher Education Commission report, are done. It tries to identify the changes which the policies and schemes of government have brought for the development of higher education in the state. Towards the end, the article tries to find out the problems of implementation of higher education policies and the gap in its implementation.

This article intends to propose an integrative framework to make learning versatile, comprehensive and more effective, giving due cognizance to the fact that students of the future may require more knowledge and skill sets to thrive in the evolving digital era. The study followed an interpretivist philosophy to accomplish its goal. As a conceptual article, the research team has contemplated on the proposed design, which was deliberated with academic administrators and experts, and students. The study has proposed a supplementary architecture to reinforce the traditional learning ecosystem by leveraging the ubiquitous presence of technology-enabled learning atmosphere. The conceptual framework proposed would guide higher education institutions to relook at their course structure and implement flexible, versatile programmes. Exposure to multiple discipline verticals can help learners develop a civic citizenship. The article has attempted to overhaul the existing confined-learning environment with a new outlook.

Reforming the teacher education system has been a key government policy towards improving school education in India. While recent curriculum and governance reforms articulate a new vision of teacher education that underscores a symbiotic relationship between teacher education and school education, it fails to engage enough with the most important participant of the teacher education system—the teacher educator. Changes to curriculum and governance process in the absence of a pro-active engagement of teacher educators with the reforms can do little to influence the teacher education processes and outcomes. The work of pre-service teacher educators is complex because their responsibilities relate to both school and higher education. The distinctiveness of their work, identity and professional development has always been marginalized in educational discourse. This article analyses select educational documents to examine the construction of work and identity of higher education-based teacher educators. It proposes the development of a professional framework of practice through a collective process, which would help understand the work of teacher educators and offer various possibilities for their professional development.

The post-1994 higher education dispensation has witnessed an increase in the number of institutional stakeholder groups striving to become members of university councils within their particular contexts. As such, they are constantly becoming coalitions of powerful constituencies who seek to influence the running of the council to satisfy stakeholder demands across the university and beyond. Consequently, there is a concern whether institutional stakeholder moves to become a part of the council and is bound to improving governance practices in the universities. This article argues that at the level of the university councils, the institutional strategies, policies and articulation with its different stakeholder groups are critical, using data obtained through the use of documentary sources, interviews and surveys. The results show that institutional stakeholders have strong inclinations towards the governance mechanisms of how individuals become members of the university council, calling for greater professionalization of the governance best practises for improving governance in strongly stakeholder-governed university councils and pointing out possible areas of further research.