More than three years after Yash Pal, eminent academic, began what was then termed as an attempt to review the functioning of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Union government, on December 28, introduced the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011 in the Rajya Sabha.
Among other things, the Bill seeks to set up the omnibus National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), the Board for Research Promotion and Innovation, the Higher Education Financial Services Corporation, and the qualifications advisory councils in vocational education.
The full text of the Bill can be found on the ‘business' link on www.rajyasabha.nic.in.
From the nation-wide deliberations of the Yash Pal committee through 2008 and 2009 to the Bill was a journey marked by many a political twist and academic turn. Core ideas put forward by the committee, including the NCHER and a national registry of persons suited to be appointed vice-chancellors and heads of institutions of higher learning, had set off a firestorm in academic circles.
The very idea of an omnibus NCHER which would subsume the functions of a host of regulatory bodies, including the UGC and the AICTE, was anathema to many. Such people saw the new commission as a threat to the federal nature of the country and that of academic India in particular. Yet, the nation's academics found it difficult to argue with Professor Yash Pal when he pointed out that institutions such as the UGC needed an overhaul and that too, immediately.
Once the Ministry prepared a draft of the Bill, there were those who criticised it saying it did not capture the spirit of the recommendations of the Yash Pal committee. The merit of such arguments apart, the one question that is exercising the minds of many academics is “When will the NCHER and the other proposed bodies become a reality.” This anxiety appears justified given that the Bill has given the NCHER a daunting mandate.
The Bill tasks the NCHER with the following:
To promote autonomy within higher educational institutions and universities;
To promote an accountability framework in regulatory systems of the higher education sector;
To promote development of a curriculum framework with specific reference to new or emerging or inter-disciplinary fields of knowledge;
To promote the exercise of choice by students for self-development, entrepreneurship, acquisition of skills, and pursuit of learning, through the development of a flexible academic framework;
To promote joint and cross-disciplinary programmes between and among the universities and other higher educational institutions;
To promote synergy of research in universities and higher educational institutions, with research in other agencies or laboratories;
To promote coordination between universities and higher educational institutions and industry towards innovation for mutual benefit and for the wellbeing of society;
To encourage universities to formulate a code of good practices in leadership, governance, and management and to develop a framework code to guide universities in formulating such a code;
To take such other measures for the promotion of higher education and research in higher educational institutions and universities for the achievement of the goals in sub-section(1) of the Bill.
To develop measures to relate higher education and research to the world of work and needs of society;
To encourage universities for enabling colleges to innovate in higher education and research to evolve into universities or institutions with an authorisation to award degrees;
To take measures to enhance access and inclusion in higher education to remove imbalances in higher education;
To perform such other functions as may be prescribed.
The NCHER, which has been given so sweeping a mandate, will, however, not be able to enforce standards or practices in institutions of higher learning. In other words, universities and other institutions of higher learning will be under no obligation to comply with such guidelines. “Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to imply that the measures taken by the commission shall be obligatory for higher educational institutions and universities to adopt, but such measures shall serve to act as reference for higher educational institutions and universities to advance quality, access and inclusion in higher education and research therein, and for the achievement of the goals in sub-section (1),” is how the Bill put it.
The NCHER will also have a role in determining “standards” in higher education and research. On this front, the Bill enjoins the commission to do the following.
Specify the requirements for the award of any degree or diploma in any field of knowledge of higher education and research and specify parameters for equivalence between academic qualifications;
Specify norms and standards of academic quality for accreditation and benchmarking of higher educational institutions and universities;
Specify norms and processes for establishment and winding up of higher educational institutions and universities;
Specify norms and processes for permitting a university or a higher educational institution empowered, by or under any law, to award any degree, to enrol students in any course or programme of study for the first time;
Specify norms of academic quality for a university to affiliate colleges;
Regulate the entry and operation of foreign educational institutions in accordance with any law providing for such regulation for the time being in force;
Specify norms and mechanisms for transparent, efficient and accountable governance in universities and other higher educational institutions;
Specify and coordinate standards for leadership positions for appointment as Vice-Chancellor of a university or the head of a central educational institution not being a college;
Specify norms to measure the productivity of research programmes;
Specify norms and principles for allocation of grants, for the maintenance and development or research or for any other general or specific purpose of any class of higher educational institutions and universities;
Specify a framework for enabling mobility of students emerging from vocational education into general higher education;
Specify mechanisms for social audit of the processes in the commission and obtain public feedback on its performance and achievements to foster accountability;
Discharge such other functions in relation to the determination, coordination and maintenance of standards in higher education and research as the Central government may, subject to the provisions of this Act, prescribe.
The commission shall, in the exercise of powers and functions under this section, create an enabling environment for universities to emerge as autonomous, self-regulatory bodies, the Bill mandates.
The Bill also makes it clear that “Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the National Board for Health Education constituted under the National Commission for Human Resources for Health Act, 2011 to approve and notify minimum norms and standards of maintenance of academic quality for accreditation and benchmarking of education in recognised health educational institutions imparting approved courses in the discipline of health throughout the period of accreditation.”
With effect from the date that the Bill becomes an Act — or in any case not later than one year — the UGC Act of 1956, the AICTE Act of 1987 and the National Council for Teacher Education Act of 1993 shall stand repealed and these institutions will cease to exist. It remains to be seen, though, whether all the bodies scheduled for creation by the Bill would result in the nation's universities becoming the autonomous, qualitative, integrated institutions that Professor Yash Pal envisioned in his report.
