How Kerala is rewriting India's higher education playbook

While Kerala’s success as a trailblazer in the advancement of literacy in India is well recognised, its achievements in the realm of higher education have received less attention. The state's higher education system has frequently been criticised for concerns about its quality as well as its failure to address the problem of student out-migration.

However, policy efforts to expand access, rethink quality frameworks, and sustained public investment, have contributed to the growth and modernisation of this crucial sector in the last decade.

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Significantly, the central pillar of Kerala’s approach to higher education rests on public provisioning of higher education. This stands as an alternative to the framework of the much-contested National Education Policy (NEP), which is increasingly regarded as being rigid, centralised and prone to being influenced by the ideological—and often communal—predilections of those in power in New Delhi.

Kerala has been compelled to engage with the NEP in many ways due to fiscal constraints and the structural realities of operating within the Indian Union. This is evident in its decision to join the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan in 2024.

In particular, the NEP’s excessive fondness for market-based solutions to the problems of higher education in India stands in contrast to Kerala’s focus on education as a public good.

Crucially, Kerala has introduced structural reforms and performance frameworks that facilitate a shift towards a more progressive and modernised higher education system.

Advancements in public education

Kerala’s advancements in public education are not recent, but the outcome of a long history of social reform and public action. Land reforms and the expansion of public education laid the foundation for access to schooling and helped position education as a key instrument of social justice.

This trajectory was further deepened in the 1990s through the People’s Planning Campaign, a landmark decentralisation initiative that devolved a significant share of development funds to local governments. By bringing communities directly into decision-making, the campaign strengthened investments in sectors such as education, improved local infrastructure, and reinforced the idea of education as a collective public good shaped by local needs.

Efforts in the last decade to revitalise public institutions — such as the Public Education Rejuvenation Campaign in 2016 and an expenditure of Rs 2,598 crore for school infrastructure development — built on decades of sustained public investment and political commitment to inclusive development, marking a continuation of Kerala’s longstanding model of prioritising education as a central pillar of social progress.

Focusing on access in higher education

Despite a severe fiscal crunch, the state has continued to invest in higher education. According to the NITI Aayog report (2025) on the quality of higher education, Kerala ranks among the Indian states with the highest per-youth public expenditure on higher education.

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More recently, the 2026–27 state budget announced the extension of free undergraduate education in arts and science government and government-aided colleges, extending the state’s free schooling policy to the tertiary sector.

Additionally, an overall allocation of Rs 38.76 crore has been made for scholarships and fellowships, encompassing the Chief Minister’s Student Excellence Award and the Kerala Research Fellowship. Full-time PhD scholars without alternative funding are now set to receive a monthly stipend of Rs 15,000.

The Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF), a central-sector scheme providing financial assistance to M.Phil and Ph.D students from minority communities, was discontinued by the Centre from 2022-23. A total of 6,722 fellowships were awarded between 2014-15 and 2021-22.

Following the discontinuation, Kerala has introduced its own initiatives, including the Chief Minister’s Research Fellowship for Minorities in 2025-26 with an allocation of Rs 11 crore for 2026-27 and a newly announced Overseas Scholarship for Minorities with an allocation of Rs 4 crore.

Complementing these financial measures, the public hostel scheme for government college students also aims to help support students’ participation in higher education. These initiatives have been undertaken alongside the introduction of the Kerala State Private Universities (Establishment and Regulation) Bill 2025, which recognises the need to expand private provision of higher education as well.

Rethinking quality

Another major area of reform concerns the ranking frameworks for higher education institutions. With the introduction of the Kerala Institutional Ranking Framework (KIRF), Kerala became the first state in India to establish its own higher-education ranking system. KIRF marks a significant effort to rethink how institutional quality is conceptualised and assessed.

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It draws on established frameworks such as the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Government of India, retaining core metrics related to research outcomes, teaching, learning, and resources.

However, it expands the evaluative framework by introducing additional indicators, such as subscription to e-journals, and places greater emphasis on inclusivity and equity, by adopting indicators such as the quantum of first-generation learners.

KIRF also broadens the scope of evaluation to incorporate the social role of higher education through measures of research productivity, research impact, entrepreneurship, and values such as scientific temper and secular outlook. The absence of a complete perception-based parameter further distances it from purely reputation-driven hierarchies, which are often based on surveys that favour historically elite institutions.

The establishment of the State Assessment and Accreditation Centre (SAAC) further strengthens this approach, providing a mechanism for quality evaluation which incorporates state-specific criteria. These differences highlight how Kerala has reworked dominant higher education frameworks to align with its broader commitment to inclusive development and secular ethos.

Strides made

The most striking outcome of Kerala’s reforms is the dramatic increase in higher education participation. Access and participation in higher education is commonly measured using the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) — the total student enrolment in higher education as a percentage of the population in the age group of 18 to 23 years. GER has risen from 21.8 per cent in 2011–12 to 41.3 per cent in 2021–22, placing Kerala among the leaders in India.

This expansion reflects the cumulative impact of public investment, welfare policies, and institutional growth. In contrast, national GER grew by less than eight percentage points from 20.8 to 28.4 during the same period. Unfortunately, more recent data on GER is unavailable, as the Centre has not released the subsequent reports of the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE).

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Kerala has also made significant strides in gender equity within higher education. Women constitute nearly 58 per cent of all student enrolment in the state, and with a Gender Parity Index (GPI) of 1.44 — the highest among Indian states — female enrolment far exceeds male enrolment. This stands in sharp contrast to the national picture, where male enrolment continues to outnumber female enrolment, with a GPI of 1.01.

Pupil-teacher ratio in higher education stands at 15 in Kerala, significantly better than the national average of 23. A lower ratio is reflective of better quality and suggests a more favourable learning environment, with greater scope for student engagement and academic support.

Kerala and NEP

Kerala has had a fraught relationship with the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. While the policy claims to bring higher education to the 21st century, it has drawn criticism for being formulated with limited consultation, for its strong push towards commercialisation and privatisation, and concerns of promoting communal polarisation, and obscurantism.

Added to these tensions, is its inherently centralising tendency, which, critics argue, militate against the tenets of a genuine federal democracy. The Centre has increasingly linked the release of funds to states with full compliance with the NEP 2020, effectively reducing the space for states to independently shape their own education policies.

Kerala has been among the most vocal critics of the NEP 2020; several other opposition-ruled states, most notably Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, have also pushed back against the centralising tendencies of the NEP.

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However, Kerala has been compelled to engage with the NEP in many ways due to fiscal constraints and the structural realities of operating within the Indian Union. This is evident in its decision to join the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (PM-USHA) in 2024, despite initial reservations about conditions tied to NEP 2020 compliance.

But Kerala appears to have adopted a strategy of selective adaptation and implementation, rather than uncritical adoption. For example, while many states have implemented the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUGP) in full, including the multiple entry and exit options at different stages, Kerala has modified its structure. In the state’s version, students are permitted to exit only after the third year, rather than at multiple points as envisaged in the NEP 2020.

Strengthening public confidence in the sector and positioning Kerala as a compelling higher education destination for its youth will require continued public investment, especially in infrastructure modernisation, and research capacity.

This is grounded in the view that early exit options may not yield meaningful academic advantages or labour market benefits in the state’s context. The reasoning is that allowing multiple stages of exit could potentially increase dropout rates, while also exacerbating inequalities in terms of who is able to continue and who is compelled to exit prematurely.

The FYUGP itself is not without challenges. Its rollout has faced issues such as limited infrastructure and faculty preparedness. Nevertheless, these modifications show how Kerala has reshaped national education policies, despite the severe limitations posed by centralisation.

In particular, with so much of its finances dependent on central transfers, the state is forced to navigate a delicate balance between maintaining its independence while securing the funds necessary to run its institutions.

Challenges ahead

Over the last decade, Kerala has undertaken a range of reforms aimed at revitalising and modernising the higher education ecosystem in the state. Its experience offers an important lesson: the demands of modern higher education need to rest on much more solid foundations instead of a purely market-based logic. Even in an era of global competition, it remains possible to imagine, and build a system grounded in public purpose, social justice, and collective investment.

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Notwithstanding these gains, considerable challenges remain. The focus now has to be on consolidating the gains achieved and sustaining investment in higher education, while simultaneously addressing concerns around institutional and system-level quality.

Strengthening public confidence in the sector and positioning Kerala as a compelling higher education destination for its youth will require continued public investment, especially in infrastructure modernisation, and research capacity.

Equally critical is the expansion of faculty recruitment, with an emphasis on full-time appointments rather than continued reliance on guest lecturers—a pervasive feature of higher education in India today.

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Mobilising resources for undertaking these large-scale public investments in higher education will remain a challenge for the state. This gets further complicated in a policy environment that is marked by a hostile Centre whose abiding faith in markets is antagonistic to anything that regards education as a classical public good.

Addressing these challenges will require a continuity of the political will that has defined Kerala’s higher education story over the last decade.

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)