Kannur has invested heavily in education for decades, yet it rarely asks the most uncomfortable question: what actually happens to students after they leave. Colleges advertise admissions, governments announce new institutions, and political speeches celebrate enrolment numbers, but the exit of students into the real economy remains largely unexamined. Migration, underemployment, career switching, skill decay, and silent dropout into informal work are treated as personal outcomes rather than policy signals. Vision Kerala 2047 requires a reversal of this logic. Education policy in Kannur must be redesigned around exits, not entries.

The dominant education narrative assumes that access equals success. Build colleges, increase seats, expand courses, and the market will sort out the rest. In Kannur, this assumption has repeatedly failed. Degrees are obtained, but trajectories fragment. Graduates move into unrelated sectors, migrate without using their training, or cycle between short-term jobs and exam preparation. Institutions continue to exist comfortably because accountability ends at graduation. What happens five years later is not their problem.

An education exit policy begins with a simple but radical premise: the purpose of education is not enrolment or certification, but post-exit capability. This does not mean immediate employment. It means clarity of direction, income sustainability, skill utilisation, and mobility options. Vision Kerala 2047 should mandate that every higher education institution in Kannur track and publish post-exit trajectories of its students over defined intervals, such as one year, three years, and five years after completion.

This is not a placement report. Placement data is notoriously gamed, selective, and short-term. Exit tracking focuses on reality, not marketing. It records whether graduates are employed, self-employed, studying further, migrating, unemployed, or disengaged from the labour market. It captures income ranges, sector alignment with education, geographic movement, and skill continuity. Crucially, it does this in aggregated, anonymised form to protect individuals while exposing patterns.

Why does this matter? Because policy currently operates blind. When a new course is approved, no one asks whether similar graduates are thriving or struggling. When students flock to certain degrees, no one examines long-term outcomes. An exit policy creates feedback loops. Courses with consistently poor trajectories are forced to reform or close. Courses with strong but under-supported outcomes gain legitimacy and investment.

This shifts power quietly but decisively. Institutions that have survived on legacy reputation or political patronage must confront data. Those that genuinely enable mobility gain credibility. The state’s role moves from patronage to referee. This is especially important in Kannur, where education has long been entangled with ideology rather than performance.

An exit-focused system also changes student behaviour. When prospective students can see what happened to previous batches, choices become grounded. Aspirations do not disappear, but illusions weaken. A student choosing between degrees sees not just syllabus content but likely futures. This reduces the silent suffering of years spent chasing mismatched paths.

There is also a labour market benefit. Employers complain that graduates are unprepared, but rarely specify where the breakdown occurs. Exit data reveals mismatches between curriculum and reality. If engineering graduates consistently end up in sales or logistics, that is not failure, but it demands curricular honesty. If arts graduates migrate successfully into care work or education, policy should support that pathway rather than deny it.

Migration becomes legible through exit tracking. Kannur sends a large share of its educated youth outside the district and the country. This is not inherently negative. But without data, migration is framed emotionally rather than strategically. Exit policy allows planners to see which skills travel well, which destinations absorb Kannur’s youth, and which return. This feeds directly into labour agreements, training calibration, and reverse migration planning.

Institutions will resist this shift. Exit data threatens comfort. Vision Kerala 2047 must therefore design incentives, not just mandates. Funding renewals, course approvals, and institutional rankings should incorporate exit transparency. Not exit success, but exit disclosure. The requirement is honesty, not perfection. Even institutions with poor outcomes can improve if they are forced to see themselves clearly.

This approach also addresses inequality more effectively than quota debates alone. Exit data disaggregated by gender, caste, income background, and geography reveals where education actually equalises and where it reproduces disadvantage. Policies can then target support where it matters, such as post-graduation transition funding, bridging programmes, or mobility grants, instead of generic scholarships that end at graduation.

A common fear is that exit tracking will stigmatise institutions or students. This risk is real if the data is misused. Vision Kerala 2047 must therefore ensure that exit information is contextualised and comparative, not punitive. Outcomes should be read alongside intake profiles, regional constraints, and sector volatility. The goal is learning, not shaming.

Technology makes this feasible. Alumni networks, digital surveys, anonymised income bands, and migration tracking through voluntary disclosure are sufficient. The challenge is governance. Data must be held by an independent education outcomes office insulated from political and institutional pressure. Its credibility is everything.

There is a deeper cultural impact. Kannur has long equated education with virtue rather than outcome. Questioning education outcomes feels like sacrilege. An exit policy does not disrespect learning. It respects life after learning. It recognises that dignity depends not on degrees held, but on lives lived.

Over time, this will reshape institutional behaviour. Colleges will design courses backward from exit realities. Faculty will engage with industries and sectors honestly. Students will demand relevance. Ideological battles over syllabi will matter less than evidence of usefulness.

Vision Kerala 2047 must also accept that some exits are non-economic. Civic engagement, caregiving, artistic work, and informal entrepreneurship matter. Exit tracking should not reduce life to salary. It should capture stability, autonomy, and continuity. A low-income but stable livelihood may be more valuable than a high-income but volatile one. The data must allow such nuance.

By 2047, Kannur could be the first district in India where education policy is judged by what happens after the ceremony, not before it. This would be a quiet revolution. No slogans. No protests. Just a steady alignment of learning with life.

This is super uncommon because it removes the shield behind which institutions hide. It asks education to justify itself not to ideology, but to time. Few systems are brave enough to do this.

Vision Kerala 2047 must be.