In a significant landmark development towards reforming the higher education in the country, the MHRD has announced a complete overhaul of apex regulator, the University Grants Commission, repeal of UGC Act 1951 and to bring in new legislation to set up the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). Accordingly the draft law called the HECI Act, 2018 (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) has been uploaded on the official website of MHRD and available for comment and suggestion till July 7.
It is understood from the draft that HECI has separated funding and academic functions earlier looked after by UGC. The parent legislation of the UGC will be repealed to make place for a new comprehensive regulation enabling establishment of HECIH. The new body will exclusively focus on setting up and implementation of academic standards rather than giving grants, with the funding function of the UGC being taken over by MHRD.
The thrust area of the commission would be to downsize over-governance of institutions and for the first-time, bring in disclosure-based regulatory regime with powers of enforcement of regulations. It seems HECI will have more teeth with backing of penal powers to order closure of institutes that violate set norms. The commission would also be able to impose fines and prosecute the offenders in higher education system as per Criminal Procedure Code.
Over a decade ago that the National Knowledge Commission in the year 2006 had recommended constituting an independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (RAHE) to replace all the existing regulatory bodies including UGC and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Subsequently the Prof. Yashpal Committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education in June 2009 also advocated a single apex regulatory body like National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) by converging multiple regulatory agencies in the field of higher education under MHRD.
As soon as the present government assumed power, the UGC Review Committee was constituted in 2014 headed by Prof Hari Gautam. This committee recommended that UGC be scrapped and replaced by an apex institution titled National Higher Education Authority (NHEA). This report (never put in public domain for suggestions) was shelved by MHRD and subsequently forwarded to the Niti Aayog only to be put in cold storage for a long time.
The Prof. Hari Gautam Committee report had plainly put forth that UGC does not have sufficient personnel of necessary quality to be a useful regulatory force in higher education. Incidentally HRD ministry headed by Smriti Irani choose to differ over scrapping of UGC.
In the Budget 2017, the PM had announced that UGC shall be reformed with NITI Aayog pitching for a Higher Education and Empowerment Regulatory Authority (HEERA) by bringing institutions under MHRD like UGC, AICTE, National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) and Distance Education Council under its umbrella.
This idea supported the belief that approval and regulatory process of UGC is based on meeting infrastructure requirements and not quality of programs. The basic intention of this move was to eliminate overlaps in jurisdiction between AICTE and UGC, to remove irrelevant regulatory provisions and bring transparency and uniformity in higher education. It was proposed to introduce the bill for HEERA in July 2017 session of Parliament to get its nod, but then the unusual happened.
Taking a diverging stand on the issue in August 2017, the Rajya Sabha was informed by MN Pandey, Minister of State for HRD that the government is not considering any merger of UGC and AICTE.
From a direct contravention to the stand taken by Irani in 2014 of not scrapping UGC and also in contradiction to the budget announcement in 2017 of subsuming all higher education bodies including AICTE and UGC under one authority, the government has decided to go ahead with scrapping the UGC, but without subsuming AICTE and NCTE as originally envisaged. Though the HCEI aims at downsizing over governance of institutions, it not understandable why the Bar Council of India
and Council of Architecture have been kept out of the purview of HECI when it is said that HECI will override the Architects Act.
It is proposed that HECI set standards for opening and closure of institutes, provide greater flexibility and autonomy to institutes and lay standards for appointments to critical leadership positions at institutions across the spectrum and even for those falling under state laws. This is no new change anyway. All this was already within the ambit of UGC. Further the current UGC statutes are also applicable across various states as the state governments have almost no mandate to restrict and contain these laid standards as per the recent SC ruling. It is also not understood as to how the new HCEI will offer better flexibility over the existing system. Further, the proposal of the financial grant to be taken over by the MHRD itself is also seen with a lens of skeptism by teacher’s bodies over the country.
The draft HECI Act is now expected to be piloted in Parliament in the upcoming monsoon session and will probably pave way for the government to follow reforms in AICTE and NCTE. Considering that Modi government’s term is coming to an end within a year, it would be intriguing to see how all of these expectations would come true.
