Abstract
At the dawn of the New Year 2016, our Journal completes two years of service in the cause of higher education. Our contributors, editors and publishers have reason to feel gratified that it has created some ripples in the academic world, judging from the increase in subscriptions, the number of contributors and the comments and suggestions we receive from around the word. It has become a truly international Journal with considerable readership.
The present issue carries contributions from half a dozen countries, all of which are in-depth studies on diverse topics such as the self-financing sector in Kerala, management of educational reforms, constructivist teaching, replacement of traditional textbooks with books from personal libraries, choices of students, massification of higher education, engineering education and critical thinking. The articles, peer reviewed for quality and relevance, contribute substantially to the available wisdom on planning higher education for the future.
The Kerala State Higher Education Council has benefitted immensely from the Journal in its own planning of activities. Having completed four years of study of various aspects of higher education and framed recommendations for the Government of Kerala, the Council is poised to promote the implementation of reforms by the universities and colleges.
The Council has been part of the state level consultations on a New Education Policy. The consultations have taken a bottoms-up approach, which has facilitated discussions at the village, block and district levels. The expectation is that the process will result in formulating a policy, based on the established values of democracy, secularism and public well-being that will ensure continuity and meet the requirements and challenges of the twenty-first century.