There is a proposal by the Narendra Modi - led Government to scrap the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and bring in a single regulatory body for higher education.
The proposed Higher Education Empowerment Regulatory Agency (HEERA) is aimed at “eliminating overlaps in jurisdiction and removing irrelevant regulatory provisions”. When this gets implemented, UGC and AICTE would be history.
Expected to be “short and clean” it will be a single body for technical and non-technical education. It will bring the regulation of both technical and non-technical higher education institutions under one umbrella. Separate bodies for such studies were being increasingly viewed as outmoded when compared to the rest of the world. With UGC and AICTE drawing flak for their poor handling of higher education, HEERA is expected to be structured in a manner that addresses their particular deficiencies.
The jurisdiction of AICTE and UGC often tend to overlap. While UGC governs arts and science universities and prescribes standards for higher education, AICTE performs similar functions for technical education. But there are many cases where institutions fall under the domain of both the UGC and AICTE, and this is where the problem of multiplicity arises leading to lack of clarity as to which body and regulations to conform to.
Taking a look at the history of higher educational reforms in India, HEERA is not the first attempt at a single regulatory body. The UPA government mooted the proposal for the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) and a related Higher Education and Research Bill was presented in 2011. The Bill aimed to repeal the UGC Act 1956 and the AICTE Act 1987 and the National Council for Teacher Education Act 1993. In its place it sought to establish the NCHER. But this was withdrawn in September 2014 because of the deficiencies that it had.
How HEERA will be implemented and whether it will address the earlier deficiencies is not clear. What is anticipated is that it will work on a graded regulation system by which top-rung institutions will be given near-complete autonomy, while the middle-rung ones will have moderate autonomy and total regulation for the lowest-rated institutions.
For this, it has also proposed a quality assessment and ranking of universities and colleges by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. Going by this, it is clear that the regulation will be based on assessment criteria, where one-size-fits-all model is not applicable.
A need for replacing the UGC and AICTE really began with the constitution of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), which was constituted in 2005 under the chairmanship of Sam Pitroda. This Commission was to recommend reforms in the education sector. It found that there was a multiplicity of regulators that were prescribing standards and norms for higher education institutions. Besides other negatives, it was found that they overlapped each other leading to confusion. It recommended a single regulatory authority that would function independently and would encompass all activities related to higher educational institutions.
Then came the Yashpal Committee in 2009 that mandated renovation and rejuvenation of the education sector, and suggested a “single, all-encompassing higher education authority”.
While the proposed regulatory body is seen to be an answer to the repressive UGC and AICTE regimes, it looks like the HEERA too will be empowered with strong penalising powers that it will exercise when necessary.
The proposed Higher Education Empowerment Regulatory Agency (HEERA) is aimed at “eliminating overlaps in jurisdiction and removing irrelevant regulatory provisions”. When this gets implemented, UGC and AICTE would be history.
Expected to be “short and clean” it will be a single body for technical and non-technical education. It will bring the regulation of both technical and non-technical higher education institutions under one umbrella. Separate bodies for such studies were being increasingly viewed as outmoded when compared to the rest of the world. With UGC and AICTE drawing flak for their poor handling of higher education, HEERA is expected to be structured in a manner that addresses their particular deficiencies.
The jurisdiction of AICTE and UGC often tend to overlap. While UGC governs arts and science universities and prescribes standards for higher education, AICTE performs similar functions for technical education. But there are many cases where institutions fall under the domain of both the UGC and AICTE, and this is where the problem of multiplicity arises leading to lack of clarity as to which body and regulations to conform to.
Taking a look at the history of higher educational reforms in India, HEERA is not the first attempt at a single regulatory body. The UPA government mooted the proposal for the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) and a related Higher Education and Research Bill was presented in 2011. The Bill aimed to repeal the UGC Act 1956 and the AICTE Act 1987 and the National Council for Teacher Education Act 1993. In its place it sought to establish the NCHER. But this was withdrawn in September 2014 because of the deficiencies that it had.
How HEERA will be implemented and whether it will address the earlier deficiencies is not clear. What is anticipated is that it will work on a graded regulation system by which top-rung institutions will be given near-complete autonomy, while the middle-rung ones will have moderate autonomy and total regulation for the lowest-rated institutions.
For this, it has also proposed a quality assessment and ranking of universities and colleges by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. Going by this, it is clear that the regulation will be based on assessment criteria, where one-size-fits-all model is not applicable.
A need for replacing the UGC and AICTE really began with the constitution of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), which was constituted in 2005 under the chairmanship of Sam Pitroda. This Commission was to recommend reforms in the education sector. It found that there was a multiplicity of regulators that were prescribing standards and norms for higher education institutions. Besides other negatives, it was found that they overlapped each other leading to confusion. It recommended a single regulatory authority that would function independently and would encompass all activities related to higher educational institutions.
Then came the Yashpal Committee in 2009 that mandated renovation and rejuvenation of the education sector, and suggested a “single, all-encompassing higher education authority”.
While the proposed regulatory body is seen to be an answer to the repressive UGC and AICTE regimes, it looks like the HEERA too will be empowered with strong penalising powers that it will exercise when necessary.