Higher education Bill to be sent to Cabinet next month

The National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill will be sent to the Cabinet within the next one month, according to Narendra Jadhav, member, Planning Commission. Jadhav is a member of the task force which has drafted the Bill. He was addressing a round table on the NCHER Bill here today.

NCHER aims at bringing different regulatory bodies — including the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — under one organisation. It will be a centralised body with a chairman and six members, supported by a collegium, and will have the authority to prepare a national registry of people eligible for appointment as vice-chancellors.

The establishment of NCHER follows the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and the Prof Yash Pal committee on higher education. The NKC recommended an independent regulatory authority in higher education to serve as an apex body and called for dissolution of all existing regulatory bodies such the UGC, the AICTE, the Medical Council of India and the Bar Council. It further suggested that UGC could not be a grant-giving and a regulatory body at the same time. So, its role should be restricted to giving grants, said Jadhav.

The Yash Pal committee, on the other hand, recommended that all existing regulatory councils be “subsumed” under NCHER.

The preamble of the Bill mentions two key objectives — co-ordination and maintenance of standards in promotion of higher education and research and promoting the autonomy of higher educational institutions for free pursuit of knowledge and innovation. The Bill also talks of compulsory accreditation and empowering universities.

Academicians, however, said the terms of the proposed Bill might not address the issue of autonomy. “The main provisions of the Bill contradict the objectives it plans to achieve. Education today needs to be de-centralised, but the draft, on the other hand, favours centralisation and concentration of powers. Perhaps the current draft needs to be re-drafted with more emphasis on autonomy and de-centralisation,” said an academician present at the round table.

Academicians said the problems that the higher education sector was facing were not because of inefficient management but because of the inability of the system to ensure quality. “Preparing a registry of eminent academics eligible for appointment as vice-chancellors is not wrong, but the criteria for deciding eminence may be a matter of dispute. Imposing a vice-chancellor in this manner is highly objectionable as it amounts to a serious assault on the autonomy of universities and infringement of states’ rights,” said a director of an institute.