5 months ago
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A Parliamentary Standing Committee connected Education tabled a study connected Monday (December 8, 2025) reviewing autonomous bodies and institutions nether the Education Ministry. In the report, it urged the University Grants Commission to see favoritism against Other Backward Classes successful the explanation of caste-based favoritism successful the latest mentation of the Promotion of Equity rules being framed by the government. It besides asked the authorities to “re-evaluate” the EWS preservation successful Associate Professor and Professor-level appointments.
The sheet recommended that a Chairperson beryllium appointed to the UGC arsenic soon arsenic possible, noting that the presumption had been vacant since April this year. It besides reiterated the proposal to guarantee that the Draft UGC (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment and Promotion of Teachers and Academic Staff successful Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards successful Higher Education) Regulations, 2025, beryllium discussed with the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), noting that astatine slightest 10 States person written to the authorities pointing retired concerns and providing suggestions.
The committee, headed by Congress MP Digvijaya Singh, besides mentioned its survey sojourn to Varanasi, wherever it recovered that “filling of EWS positions successful module is astir intolerable for Associate Professor and Professor levels”.
The sheet explained that a campaigner for the station of Professor indispensable person served arsenic an Associate Professor, and that a campaigner for Associate Professor indispensable person served arsenic an Assistant Professor. Since some Associate and Assistant Professors gain implicit ₹8 lakh according to the UGC wage scale, determination volition ne'er beryllium a campaigner who qualifies nether the income criteria for the EWS position.
“Universities walk a batch of clip and resources seeking applicants for specified positions contempt knowing that candidates volition beryllium intolerable to find. In specified a situation, the Committee recommends that the Ministry re-evaluate the implementation of EWS astatine the level of Associate Professor and Professor,” it said.
In the conception dealing with the Promotion of Equity rules for higher acquisition institutions, the sheet pointed retired concerns successful the draught mentation enactment retired earlier this year. It noted that these rules had not been finalised yet and recommended that disablement beryllium included arsenic an “axis of discrimination”.
“The draught Regulations indispensable necessitate an yearly nationalist disclosure of caste-based favoritism cases, mandatory sensitization programs for module and administrative staff, and capable intelligence wellness enactment and ineligible assistance successful each HEIs,” it said. It besides called connected the authorities to guarantee that the Equity Committee nether these rules were typical of the module and students, meaning that implicit fractional of its creation should beryllium from the SC, ST, and OBC communities.
On higher acquisition successful general, the committee said the goals of the National Education Policy, 2020 were “ambitious” successful presumption of achieving a 50% Gross Enrolment Ratio by 2030 and switching from a three-year to a four-year undergraduate programme. This would necessitate sizeable infrastructure enhancement and module recruitment.
However, the sheet said, “UGC and the Department’s caller measures to restrict backing for superior projects successful HEIs poses a situation to achieving the goals of the NEP. The Committee is besides acrophobic astir the quality of the grade colleges to conscionable the requirements of the NEP and it feels that determination exists mismatch betwixt the existent presumption of these colleges and the imaginativeness of the NEP which needs a broad valuation and a factual response.”
The committee noted that universities needed “greater support” successful implementing Multiple Entry Multiple Exit frameworks and to plan the program for these courses successful a mode that one-year certificates oregon two-year diplomas tin supply students with “marketable skills”.
The House sheet besides highlighted that isolated from the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of Technology, recently recruited module astatine Central universities and different UGC-funded institutions “do not person effect grants astatine the opening of their tenure for constitution and probe expenditures”.
