The government proposes to take over from regulators the responsibility of funding higher educational institutions, under a bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday to set up a new higher education regulatory architecture.

Opposition members complained that the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill gives the Centre overriding powers to control higher education. An RSP member from Kerala, N.K. Premachandran, cited Article 348 to object to the bill carrying a Hindi name.

Faced with Opposition pressure, the bill was referred to a standing committee.

Introduced by education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the bill aims to subsume under an overarching authority the existing higher education regulator (University Grants Commission), technical education regulator (All India Council of Technical Education), and teacher education regulator (National Council for Teacher Education).

A Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan that the bill looks to establish will have three councils with separate functions.

The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Viniyaman Parishad will be a regulatory body while the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Gunvatta Parishad will oversee the accreditation system and the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Manak Parishad will prescribe academic standards. (See chart)

The councils will function independently. The apex commission will “give directions to the Councils for the purposes of coordination”.

The bill’s financial memorandum says the task of funding the central higher-education institutions has been kept out of the purview of the Adhishthan, in keeping with the recommendations of the National Education Policy.

“To ensure that the Standards Council, Regulatory Council and the Accreditation Council fully discharge their specific domain functions, the function of disbursal of grants to the centrally funded higher educational institutions shall be accordingly ensured through mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education,” the bill says.

The UGC, set up as a grant-giving body, has been funding central universities since its inception. The AICTE runs several scholarship schemes, under which it provides stipends to students.

Critics argued that while the regulators mostly worked as the government’s puppets, the proposed legislation would remove even the fig leaf of academic autonomy.

A statement from the Federation of Central Universities Teachers’ Associations said the new arrangement would allow the government to interfere in the affairs of educational institutions, threatening their independence.

“On the one hand this means that central universities will be subject to meeting regulatory requirements and ‘standards’ imposed by external bodies without that being linked to any commitment on their part for provision of the required funding,” it said.

“Further, direct control of funding by the MoE (education ministry) is not a guarantee of necessary finances. It only increases the scope for government control over the universities and undermining of their autonomy.”

MPs Manoj Jha of the RJD and Raja Ram Singh of the CPIML Liberation criticised the bill at a news conference held by the Coordination Committee against HECI (VBSA) at the Press Club of India.

“I’m not too pleased with it going to the standing committee. These committees’ (memberships) are heavily tilted towards the NDA,” Jha said.

“The date of death is merely postponed but death is certain.... We have to increase our tribe. There are many BJP members who are not too happy with this bill. We need to protest on the streets as party whips do not apply to the streets.”

Singh said: “Not just the Left but all INDIA MPs equivocally opposed this bill. The Treasury benches seemed scared. They are forcing educational institutions to do economic jugaad (workaround) by hiking fees or providing their premises for commercial activities.

“Whichever the manner in which you raise funds, the education given will be saffronised with barriers to the creation of knowledge or what you write. This will not turn us into a Vishwaguru but into a country of foolish people.”

Rajeev Kumar, who has taught in the IITs and central universities, said the bill placed all higher-education institutions — including the IITs and the NITs — under a single umbrella, to be governed in the same manner.

“Would this not risk diluting the standards of world-class institutions like the IITs in the name of uniformity?” he said.