This is achieved by bring into force two institutional paradigms:

• A Dignified Student life and A dignified Teacher life.
• A Charter of Student Rights and Charter of Teacher rights are to be brought up as legal frameworks so as to guarantee the basic rights and freedoms of students and teachers with respect to higher education, the details of which are described in the Shyam Menon Report.

This is done through

• Implementation of semester system in its true spirit, which means prominence of credits rather than fixed duration.
• Capacity building programs for curriculum development, course design, syllabus construction, and evaluation to be organised under the aegis of the KSHEC to enable teachers to deepen and widen their competence in areas critically significant to their practice as teachers.
• Starting of ten innovative programmes in 50 colleges/universities in project mode.
• A 4-year structure for undergraduate programme.

New institutions that encourage enrolment and recruitment practices that ensure the participation of students and faculty from across the country and abroad, is proposed; such as

• Kerala Institute for Science, Technology and Innovation
• Kerala Knowledge Consortium Centres.
• Transdisciplinary Centres.
• Kerala Centre for Academic Computing.
• Kerala Centre for Analytical Service.
• Kerala State Science and Technology Academy.
• Additionally several schemes for promoting and rewarding excellence in research and a holistic approach to nurturing research and innovation as well as administrative reforms to facilitate research and innovation is proposed in the Shyam B Menon commission report.

To strengthen existing study and research programmes in social sciences , humanities , languages and arts in all universities and higher educational institutions as well as the setting up of new institutions that can provide innovative interventions and solutions, several new institutions are proposed such as,

• Kerala Institute of Advanced Studies
• Kerala Institute of Policy Studies
• Institute for Gender Equity
• Institute for Climate Change Studies
• Centre for indigenous People’s education

Along with this there are several initiatives in language studies such as Kerala Language Network that shall undertake various initiatives for the development of local language for knowledge.

Several reforms are proposed to reform the higher education ecosystem in Kerala which includes changes in the affiliating system. Course design, syllabus construction and evaluation are proposed to be decentralised to colleges. Moreover, the colleges are to be lifted to a trajectory of ensuring greater control and ownership of key components of the core academic process such as curriculum and evaluation. Every institution may be asked to chart their own Institutional Development Plan based on which they may seek resource support from all sources including central and state governments.

The principles that should define the governance structure of universities as recommended by Shyam B Menon commission are; Academic freedom, Financial autonomy, Governance from within as well as separation of the academic and administrative strands of governance.

At the institutional level, library shall be the central component of teaching-learning process. This will help replacement of rote memorisation with meaningful exploration using resources in the library and environment. A more engaging, interactive and exploratory classroom dynamics shall be supplemented by flipped classroom approach which will result in a more systematic incorporation of library resources into the pedagogic design.

There is a consensus that the strive towards a better knowledge society is not complete without the creation of a comprehensive digital infrastructure in the higher education sector in Kerala.

To meet the target of 60% GER over the next 10 years, the focus will be on the promotion of what is called a self-sustaining sector in higher education. This shall be a collaborative endeavour between the govt and private promoters of higher education. There will be ways of rationalising fees as well as bringing about a more optimal balance between government grant and revenue raised form student fees in meeting the operational costs in public institutions.

The leading role of public funding shall be considered as a non-negotiable policy feature. At the same time, creating a facilitating environment to encourage private sector participation in higher education with social regulation at the centre of the policy design is being explored.