Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

As announced earlier by Niti Aayog, a regulatory body- Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency  (HEERA)- is going to replace a bunch of other bodies responsible for education including UGC and AICTE. But until that happens, the Central government will work on an 11-point agenda to free up education and bring in qualitative change.

A plan in association with Human Resources Development Ministry has been drawn up by the Niti Aayog and has decided to implement the government’s ‘short-term measures to improve UGC and AICTE regulatory frameworks’.

The new agenda offers joint degrees with foreign institutions, full online courses, more incentives for faculty, using NET to decide on PhD admissions and ending the inspector Raj that AICTE and UGC have been conducting all along.

The following are the details of the higher education recast:

Accreditation Overhaul

The currently functioning institutions working for this agenda have agreed to empanel reputed national and international accreditation agencies in addition to India’s own National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA).

UGC will be regulating other agencies which will carry out accreditation on quality standards in a transparent and objective manner and then keep all reports online.

Every institute will be accredited for five years and autonomy to be linked with the accreditation grade.

Three Levels of Graded Autonomy

On the basis of academic, administrative and financial autonomy, the accreditation will be provided, whether high or low.

Reward the good faculty

To attract the best faculty and build global repute, additional compensation and incentives for a limited proportion of faculty— about 10% of associate professors and professors will be provided.

End Inspector Raj

With an accord to limit UGC inspections and bring in more objectivity and transparency via clearly defined criteria for assessment and display of all inspection reports online, the Central is making considerable changes in the picture.

Online freedom

Although UGC currently is ignorant of online programs, now, it is agreed that the top institutions are permitted to run complete online programs consistent with the standards at the top 100 universities. Courses without a ‘practical’ content is to be fully online and those that require some practical content to be run on hybrid mode. Transparent accreditation and grading of online courses is one of the important objectives of the plan.

Expanding Footprint

It has been agreed by the government to allow highly graded universities to open off-shore campuses in area of geo-political importance.

Autonomous colleges

 To ensure better implementation, bring more objectivity in the process of evaluation and permit institutions to design innovative new degree programs, the existing norms by UGC will be replaced. This will also allow these colleges to award a degree under the title of autonomous college with seal of the University and also provide an enabling route for institutions that fail to get a no-objection certificate from a reluctant affiliating university.
The foreign element

With academic collaboration permitted only with those foreign institutes that are in the top 500 in world rankings, the Centre explores a joint degree mechanism.

NET check for PhD                                                                     

Rattled by quality of PhD admissions, it is proposed that the existing NET exam for the junior research fellowships and lectureship be adjusted for entry to PhD programmes also.

Two-Term limit

Leadership of all institutions must change every two years unless; there is a case of outstanding improvement in an institution’s accreditation or rankings during the second term.

By Rupal