NEW DEAL: Academic Yash Pal (right) with human resource development minister Kapil Sibal after submitting the Yash Pal Committee report last year

It could be a new architecture for regulating higher education. A draft bill — Higher Education and Research (HER) Bill — that will set up a National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) is to be placed before the Central Advisory Board of Education (an advisory body under the human resource development ministry) when it meets on June 19.

The establishment of an NCHER was recommended by the Committee to Advise on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education, headed by academic Yash Pal (and hence known as the Yash Pal Committee). The committee envisaged this body to be the overarching regulator for the entire higher education sector. It was also to subsume all existing regulators such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education, National Council for Teacher Education, and the academic functions of the Medical Council of India, Bar Council of India and others.

Most experts agree that the present system of multiple regulators in higher education isn’t working. “Everyone is pulling in different directions. If you want to open up the sector, new entrants will need a system which is transparent, dynamic and a regulatory agency that doesn’t micromanage,” says Amitabh Jhingan, partner and education sector leader at consulting firm Ernst & Young.

The draft HER Bill does seem to be an improvement over an earlier version (called the NCHER Bill). That draft had attracted widespread criticism for over- centralisation and bureaucratisation of the education system. Yash Pal too feels that it is better than the earlier draft but wants to wait and see what shape the final bill takes when it is tabled in Parliament.

Yash Pal is satisfied, though, that the new bill brings medical education under the purview of the NCHER, something which the earlier bill had omitted.

The overall responsibility of the NCHER is to promote the autonomy of higher education institutions, facilitate access, inclusion and opportunities for all and promote a culture of quality and excellence in higher education.

A major innovation in the draft HER Bill is the setting up of a Higher Education Financial Services Corporation (HEFSC) as a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. The corporation is to disburse funds to universities on the basis of norms and principles set by the NCHER. This is an improvement over the current system where the regulator (UGC) is also the funds disburser, a practice the earlier draft had continued.

However, the HEFSC is not getting unqualified approval. For example, the president of the Delhi University Teachers Association, Vijender Sharma, worries that this will bring a corporate culture to the financing of education.

One criticism against the earlier draft was that it eroded the autonomy of state governments. No universities could be set up without the “authorisation” of the NCHER and, therefore, even state governments would have become supplicants before the commission if they wanted to establish a university. The new draft seems to address this by saying that every university has to intimate the NCHER of its intention to commission operations, along with an assessment report by a registered accreditation agency. The NCHER cannot refuse “commencement of academic operations in a university” if it fulfils the stipulated norms and it has to either “declare” or “reject” the request within 120 days.

However, Sharma insists that the changes from the draft NCHER are only cosmetic. Since no institution can confer a degree without a declaration from the NCHER, he points out, states still don’t have the freedom to set up universities. The draft HER Bill, he insists, far from decentralising the system will only further centralise it and erode the autonomy of higher education institutions.

There’s concern also over a proposed Directory of Academics for Leadership Positions from which institutions can choose their vice-chancellors. The directory is to be prepared on the basis of names suggested by a collegium of scholars. The earlier draft had made selection of vice-chancellors from a “national registry” compulsory. The revised draft says the directory is available for universities “if they so require”. Yash Pal, however, wonders if there is a need for this at all. “Lists like these will only have competent people. Our universities don’t need merely competent people. They need special people who will make an impact. Such people will not figure in lists of this kind.”

Yash Pal is also unhappy at the large number of formal structures that the draft bill sets up. There is a collegium consisting of scholars of repute which is to “aid, advise and make recommendations” to the NCHER on a range of issues, recommend names for the post of the chairperson and members of the NCHER and constitute advisory committees on specific issues. Then there is an 11-member general council which includes, among others, representatives of each state higher education council, vice-chancellors of universities, heads of professional bodies, among others. The council is to make recommendations to the NCHER on steps to enhance access to education, to link education with professions, remove imbalances in education, funding of education, to name just a few.

“Why are they adding layers and layers of bodies,” asks Yash Pal. His report had mentioned a collegium but that was to be an informal body of eminent academics who would advise the government on educational policy and on the selection of the chairperson and members of the NCHER. “We had never intended it to become another formal body,” he says. “With structures like these, freedom and autonomy will be meaningless.”

Over now to the Central Advisory Board for Education.

LOFTY GOALS

The NCHER aims to

• promote autonomy within institutions
• promote the development of accountability within institutions and the regulatory framework
• evolve a flexible academic framework with the facility of joint and cross-disciplinary programmes between higher education institutions
• formulate a Code of Good Practices by universities
• develop norms for financing higher education institutions
• make regulations on matters such as awarding of degrees or diplomas, the norms and standards for accreditation of institutions, norms for setting up and closing of institutions, the standards for the appointment of vice-chancellors, etc.