5 months ago
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In its caller Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, acceptable to beryllium introduced successful Parliament this session, the Union authorities has projected an “overhaul of the regulatory framework” of higher acquisition successful India by establishing a 12-member Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) umbrella commission, nether which abstracted regulatory (viniyaman), accreditation (gunvatta), and standards (manak) councils volition operate.
This Bill, listed successful the Lok Sabha bulletin for the Winter Session of Parliament this year, seeks to subsume the functions of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education, and the National Council for Teachers’ Education. It further proposes that the UGC’s grants-disbursal relation beryllium performed “through mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education”.
Citing its pursuit of the National Education Policy, 2020, which envisioned a “light but tight” regulatory framework, the government, successful the Statement of Objects and Reasons, said the Bill would “enable and empower universities and different higher acquisition institutions to execute excellence successful teaching, learning, probe and innovation, arsenic an result of amended co-ordination and determination of standards successful institutions for higher acquisition oregon probe and technological and method institutions”.
In this Bill, the authorities has provided for the instauration of the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA), which volition dwell of 12 members. The Viksit Bharat Viniyaman Parishad (regulatory), the Viksit Bharat Gunvatta Parishad (accreditation), and the Viksit Bharat Manak Parishad (standards) volition run nether this, with up to 14 members each.
The instrumentality is projected to beryllium applicable to each Central and State universities, colleges, and higher acquisition institutions, including those for method education, teacher education, architects’ education, institutions of nationalist importance, and institutes of eminence. It has exempted nonrecreational programmes successful disciplines specified arsenic Medicine, Dentistry, Law, Pharmacology, Nursing, and Veterinary Sciences.
The authorities added that the Council of Architecture would proceed to relation arsenic a nonrecreational standards mounting body, and would person practice connected each 3 councils nether the VBSA. The authorities said, “Thus, the CoA would acceptable the standards oregon expectations successful its peculiar tract of learning and signifier portion having nary regulatory role.”
The VBSA is projected to relation similar “an apex umbrella body” that is meant to nonstop the “comprehensive and holistic maturation of higher education” and guarantee coordination betwixt the 3 councils. The Standards Council would find world standards successful the institutes and “would guarantee synchronisation”; the Regulatory Council would “coordinate and maintain” standards, and the Accreditation Council would supervise and oversee an “independent ecosystem of accreditation”, the authorities explained.
While the Bill gives the Accreditation Council a mandate to make an “outcome-based organization accreditation framework”, it has mandated the Regulatory Council to acceptable standards for Centre-approved overseas universities to run successful India, “facilitate high-performing universities” to acceptable up campuses abroad, and make a “coherent argumentation to forestall commercialisation of higher education”, among others.
Widespread disapproval
A rudimentary mentation of this Bill was brought successful 2018 by the erstwhile Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) arsenic the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill. This had received wide disapproval and suggestions from scholars, teachers’ associations, and State governments for a big of reasons, including the Centre having disproportionate powerfulness successful appointments, and taking distant grant-disbursal powers from a UGC-like body.
However, dissimilar the HECI Bill, which projected conscionable the 1 HECI, the VBSA Bill sets up an overarching committee successful the VBSA, nether which the Regulatory, Accreditation, and Standards Councils would function. Presidents of each of these councils would person a spot reserved successful the VBSA, successful summation to which the VBSA would dwell of the Secretary, Education Ministry arsenic an ex officio member. Apart from them, the VBSA would gully from 2 professors astatine State higher acquisition institutes, person a member-secretary, and 5 eminent experts arsenic members.
In the councils, however, the Bill has provided for a subordinate to beryllium nominated by the State oregon national territory governments, successful summation to ex officio members.
Graded penalties
In the punitive powers granted to the VBSA successful this projected legislation, the authorities has suggested graded penalties, with fines starting from ₹10 lakh for the archetypal instances of violation, and going up to ₹75 lakh oregon adjacent closure of the institute for repeated violations of these guidelines. The instrumentality besides provides the VBSA with the powerfulness to suspend the institute’s powers to assistance certificates, degrees, oregon diplomas for violations arsenic well. Institutes recovered operating without accreditation whitethorn beryllium liable for fines upwards of ₹2 crore.
The authorities cited the NEP, 2020, to warrant taking distant grant-disbursal powers from the regulatory authority. In the fiscal memorandum of the Bill, it said, “the relation of backing should beryllium segregated from the councils performing the functions of world modular setting, regularisation and accreditation”. It said this relation would present beryllium “ensured done mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education”, without elaborating connected the mechanisms.
Batting for the “required regulatory reforms”, the authorities said that with this Bill, “The contiguous challenges faced by higher acquisition institutions owed to multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory support protocols volition beryllium done distant with.”
