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Higher education reforms on course
PM gives nod to regulatory body
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 29
In a major step towards reforming higher education in India, the government is learnt to have granted in-principle approval to the creation of an overarching regulatory body that will subsume all existing regulators, including the UGC, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), National Council of Teachers’ Education (NCTE) and Distance Education Council (DEC).

The approval came from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following a Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry’s presentation to the PMO on the subject this Thursday. Agreeing to the concept of the proposed National Council for Higher Education and Research that will derive its powers from the Constitution of India, the PM has been said to have asked the ministry to first evolve a consensus around the subject and then move forward with the modalities.

Highly placed sources told The Tribune that in-principle approval had been given for bringing a constitutional amendment to create the council in question- a move that’s being seen as a huge achievement on part of the HRD Ministry. It would now present the matter for discussion among top agenda items for the 56th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) slated in the capital this Monday.

In his presentation to the PM, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has been learnt to have hammered the need for arming the proposed council with the requisite powers to deal with policy issues in higher education. For the council to be given teeth, a constitutional amendment would be required to subsume many of the existing regulators that have been created in the past by the Acts of the Parliament.

The proposed NCHE (as suggested by Prof Yashpal in his report on the rejuvenation of higher education in India) would come up along the lines of the Election Commission and UPSC and would be fully autonomous, the sources in the ministry said. The council, when it is formed, would subsume 15 existing regulators in the sector.

Also, HRD ministry has been learnt to have presented to the PM the proposals on the selection of chairperson for the said council. The search committee mooted for the appointment of the council head has been proposed to have as members the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and HRD Minister along with two to three other members.

The council would, while acting as the apex body in higher education, create an enabling environment for universities to become self-regulatory.