Kerala’s higher education landscape on a tech-driven shift: Dr Sharmila Mary Joseph at Huddle Global

Trivandrum / December 13, 2025

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 13: Kerala’s higher education landscape is on course of a profound transformation on the strength of a series of initiatives that focus on employability, skill upgradation and entrepreneurship development, said Dr Sharmila Mary Joseph, Principal Secretary Department of Higher Education, Government of Kerala.

Dr Sharmila Mary Joseph was speaking at Huddle Global 2025, India’s largest startup festival organised by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), at Kovalam on Saturday.

A key component of this transformation is creating industry-academia linkage, she pointed out, delivering the Leadership Talk on “Future-ready Kerala: How Cluster-based academic ecosystems can deliver entrepreneurs, IP and scalable solutions.”

She noted that an added thrust is being given to integration of cutting edge technologies in higher education to address critical issues like employability and market needs.

There is a mismatch on this count now, partly due to limited collaboration between industry and academia, resulting from a curriculum that fails to equip  students with necessary skills for today’s job market, she said.

As a result of this, students coming out of higher education campuses often find it difficult to get employment, leading to increase in unemployment and economic instability.

Also, lack of trained workforce can result in decreased productivity, she said, adding that it was to address these issues that the government came out with a set of upfront initiatives.

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