Keralam’s Higher Education Department recently issued a circular granting autonomous self-financing colleges, as well as self-financing streams within autonomous aided colleges, complete exemption from requiring a government No Objection Certificate (NOC) to introduce new programmes or permanently increase seat capacity. Framed by the state administration as a measure to ease bureaucratic bottlenecks, the move aligns with its stated push for curriculum modernisation.
Defending the decision, Higher Education Minister Roji M. John told Malayala Manorama: “What is the point of teaching outdated courses? There aren't even students willing to take them. They are leaving the state in search of modern courses. Providing courses aligned with the demands of the current era is indeed the government's policy.”
The minister further noted that autonomous status is awarded based on academic excellence, arguing that deregulation allows these institutions to launch new programmes independently without burdening the public exchequer. “University approval remains mandatory for the courses. What justification is there in insisting that managements must run from pillar to post at the Secretariat for government clearance? Isn't it during such runarounds that opportunities for corruption arise? Insisting on government approval is a regressive approach,” he added.
Yet, beneath the rhetoric of administrative efficiency and industry readiness lies an unsettling paradox. A section of public education scholars argues that deregulating only self-financing programs amounts to an abdication of state responsibility—a subtle neoliberal shift designed to let public colleges wither while private capital captures emerging disciplines. In the long run, critics caution, this selective liberalisation risks fracturing institutional parity, shutting out economically weaker students, and dealing a lasting structural blow to Keralam’s public education legacy.
Speaking to THE WEEK, academic and higher education policy expert Amruth G. Kumar observed that while introducing new-age courses is framed as progressive institutional autonomy, applying it selectively to self-financing operations creates systemic distortions.
“Government and government-aided colleges in Keralam predominantly serve students from economically weaker sections through nominal fee structures, statutory affirmative action, and general merit admissions,” Kumar said. “In contrast, self-financing seats demand steep tuition fees. By freeing self-financing streams to launch contemporary, market-aligned programs while keeping government and aided institutions tied to strict bureaucratic NOC requirements, the state effectively commodifies modern education. High-demand, high-employability disciplines risk becoming the exclusive preserve of families with economic security, locking out marginalised and working-class students.”
Under the revised guidelines, an NOC from the government remains mandatory to start new courses under the aided stream or permanently increase seats in government, aided, and autonomous aided institutions. The exemption applies strictly to autonomous self-financing colleges and self-financing streams within autonomous aided institutions.
Kumar contends that this asymmetry directly threatens social equity: “When private and unaided streams can swiftly introduce trending, industry-relevant courses, enrolment naturally migrates toward them. As government- and non-autonomous-aided colleges are held back from offering comparable contemporary programs, their traditional courses inevitably suffer falling enrolment. Over the years, this dynamic could manufacture a pretext for the state to claim that 'there are not enough students' in courses run by government or government-aided institutions, justifying phased fiscal withdrawal, frozen faculty appointments, and shrinking public investment under the banner of fiscal rationalisation.”
Beyond questions of equity, Kumar highlighted the erosion of a level playing field among higher education institutions. “Autonomous self-financing institutions gain an unfair head start,” he explained. “Because their programme rollouts are liberated from governmental scrutiny, they capture market share and public interest long before state-funded colleges can navigate bureaucratic delays. Instead of fostering an ecosystem of excellence across all institutions, the reform skews the field decisively against state-funded public institutions.”
Education policy observers argue that to modernise higher education without eroding public institutions, the state should have adopted a public-first, structurally balanced framework.
“Rather than deregulating private capital first, comprehensive structural autonomy and curriculum flexibility should have been extended to government and aided institutions as an urgent priority,” Kumar noted. “The state should have enabled public colleges to introduce emerging, interdisciplinary subjects simultaneously with—or ahead of—the private sector.”
Such an approach, analysts point out, would require strategic faculty redeployment and resource optimisation rather than retrenchment. Instead of using declining enrollments in legacy departments as a justification for disinvestment or recruitment freezes, the state could establish policy frameworks to retrain and redeploy existing permanent faculty across disciplines to teach emerging fields. Cross-institutional and inter-departmental faculty pools could likewise support new-generation degrees without placing unsustainable financial demands on the exchequer.
Furthermore, critics argue that if procedural delays in granting NOCs were indeed the primary bottleneck, the state should have introduced a time-bound, single-window clearance mechanism applicable to all institutions uniformly. As Kumar concluded: “Parity requires that a government or government-aided college seeking to launch an emerging technology or social science course operate under the exact same procedural velocity as an autonomous private college.”
