We, the stakeholders of higher education in India, have grown up with the UGC Act, 1956 in so far as our academic and administrative matters are concerned.

There is no denying that in the public interest, there is a case for amending the six-decades-old UGC Act and strengthening the entity so that it can effectively and autonomously address the challenges of increased access to higher education (HE), promote productive research, catch up with global practices and give an impetus to the growth of public funded or state-sponsored higher education institutions (HEIs).

The amended UGC Act will, therefore, be more empowered to ensure that prescribed standards and public accountability of all HEIs, both publicly run and privately funded are carefully monitored and supervised towards national objectives. For that, extensive consultations with all stakeholders of undergraduate and higher levels, notably students, scholars, teachers, officers, alumni and the public at large are imperative.

However, there is no case for dismantling the UGC and fragmenting the essential functions of regulatory bodies. There is also no case for undermining the important roles played by the state-level authorities that have concurrent responsibilities of monitoring and maintaining standards of higher education.

Hence, academic communities that are committed to upholding public interest and the federal character of higher education need to be roped in for consultations in order to ensure that these concerns are seriously considered by the HRD ministry and the Central Government while drafting a new policy.

In fact, concerted discussions at the district, state, regional and national levels were conducted by the HRD ministry while giving shape to the New Education Policy which for reasons unknown has been pushed to the back-burner. Instead of the NEP, this HECI is now proposed to take its place in the field of higher education and research.

The Draft Bill for the HECI Act proposes an “improvement“ in the regulatory mechanism for higher education without reflecting on the shortcomings of the UGC. The HRD minister did not care to appoint an expert panel to assess the areas where the UGC has developed fault lines or failed to deliver on the national goals of excellence with equity of access although the UGC has remained the apex body of higher education for more than six decades.

Instead of making an objective case for such drastic legislation that dismantles the UGC and replaces it with a markedly different structure and scope of regulation, it vaguely refers to “changed priorities”. Its purported emphasis on ‘Quality’ of higher education appears to be at the cost of the other two indispensable and inseparable foundations, namely ‘Equity’ and ‘Access’.

While the concern over quality is repeated throughout the Bill, equity and access do not even find a passing mention. In fact, the Draft Bill for the HEI Act signals a step backwards in the history of Higher Education Policy and regulation in as much as it appears to be designed to arrest the progressive social transformation that the marginalised social groups and classes in India have achieved by means of access to subsidised higher education.

Throughout the Draft Bill, the Central Government aims at offering a “level-playing field” to public and private institutions by restoring the exclusive educational privileges of traditionally powerful groups in society. Finally, by delinking funding from the core functions of HEI, it attempts to deprive the maintenance of standards of higher education of its most fundamental input.

The Draft Bill proposes the setting up of an overtly bureaucratic entity that will provide a level-playing field to both public and private HEIs by creating a set of uniform parameters of assessment and accreditation, determining learning outcomes, standard areas of research and measuring effectiveness of courses and programmes through a direct co-relation with employability.

This rabidly commercial approach destroys all scope to allow an independent vision of higher education to acquire both curricular knowledge and jobrelated skills which should evolve in tandem with the growing educational aspirations of the masses.

It ignores the fact the public- funded HEIs are engaged in a qualitatively different range of functions that focus on larger social inclusion and cater to diverse needs. It is silent on the quality of infrastructure and faculty inputs required by publicfunded HEIs to offer quality education in wide-ranging academic and vocational disciplines at reasonable and affordable costs.

Instead, it imposes financial autonomy on HEIs through the insistence on so-called “Graded Autonomy”, generation of funds through internal resources, promotion of initiatives like self-financed courses and Open Distance Learning through the Massive Online Courses which can enrol a large numbers of students without having to provide them with much physical infrastructure.

The Draft Bill takes over many regulatory functions of the UGC, by laying down the criteria and process of “authorisation” instead of “affiliation” and the conditions that would merit the revocation of authorisation.

We are all aware of the widespread corruption of private players for establishment of institutions without the basic requirements of physical and human infrastructure. Over the years, the UGC, AICTE, NCTE and other regulatory authorities were forced to disaffiliate a large number of spurious institutions.

The UGC Annual Report 2016-17 states that only 5.1 per cent of 42,338 colleges are under Sec.2 (f ) of UGC Act, 1956 while those approved under Sec. 2(f ) and 12(B) are just about 22 per cent.

These education shops are functioning with impunity under the care of local universities. Despite such a horrific scenario, the draft Bill wants that the proposed HEIs upload their infrastructural data on the website preceding authorisation without any validation of claims by spot verification.

This overreach is not only a clear contradiction between the hallowed objectives on paper and actual practices on ground, but also suggests a definite intent to encourage uncontrolled commercialisation of higher education by fly-by-night private promoters.

It is in this context of neglecting the input requirements, that the HRD ministry’s fallacious euphoria over freedom from “Inspection Raj” needs to be viewed.

The glib reference to Inspection Raj conceals the fact that regulation and monitoring will be confined to an excessive emphasis on periodic institutional documentation as uploaded on websites and mechanical adherence to assessment parameters.

It will not involve inspection of institutions and interaction with teachers, students and staff. This will lead to a further abstraction of the notion of quality, the ignorance of grievances and the elimination of objective feedback.

The long-term objective is to maintain a mechanical record of performance while completely setting infrastructural concerns aside and going soft on private operators who run all kinds of Institutions with the lowest inputs.

The Draft Bill, however, allows the Commission to order closure of HEIs that repeatedly fail to adhere to or comply with its regulations. However, given the overarching space for the private sector to operate, such a provision is destined to become a mere eyewash in the absence of separate regulations for de-recognition.

The Commission has been side-tracked from the genuine functions of monitoring and maintenance of standards by making it an entity that is responsible for determining curricular structures, learning outcomes and measuring the effectiveness of courses and programmes.

These are integral academic functions of the statutory academic bodies of the HEIs, the prerogative of university-level committees on curriculum development and faculty departments. By denying HEIs these rights, the Draft Bill creates a draconian model of academic micromanagement that disregards the academic autonomy of HEIs.

(To be concluded)

The writer is former Registrar, University of North Bengal.