Regulating the Regulators: The National Education Policy on higher education

The latest All India Higher Education Survey places India as one the largest higher education systems in the world with 993 Universities and 39,931 Colleges. With just 3.73 crore students enrolled in Higher Education, India’s Gross Enrolment ratio at about 26.3 percent stands as a reality check on how an institutional expansion does not necessarily lead to a comprehensive one.

While India credits herself as an enormous education system, it also is one of the most complex and over regulated education systems in the world. While excessive regulation should ideally limit transgression, India is also arguably home to some of the largest number of fake universities in the world. It is immensely important to understand Higher Education Institutions in a country not only serve as gates to fruitful employment and immaculate innovation, they are also supposed to be epicentres of public policy and informed dissent.

The famed National Education Policy 2020 based primarily and mostly on the recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee does paint a dreamy painting but a lot more colour is needed on the same canvas.

The Policy proposes to set up the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) under which the National Higher Education Regulatory Council would be established. This Council would serve as a single regulator for all elements of Higher Education including Teaching but excluding Medical and Legal Education. This would require a national parliamentary law to be passed as Higher Education Regulation is in the Union list. The same law would also have to abolish the existing regulatory bodies such as the University Grants Commission, All India Council of Higher Education etc. Interestingly, this is not a new idea but a rebranded one. The HECI Bill has been placed twice before the Parliament; once in the current Lok Sabha last year which is naturally pending and once in the previous one. The pending bill in many ways contradicts the final outcomes of the National Education Policy and would ideally mean the withdrawing of the currently pending bill or massively amending it to take into account the recommendations of the Policy. It is pertinent to note that even after the National Education Policy being announced in all its glory, the pending bill does not find any mention in our ongoing parliamentary sessions. Instead, in a rather questionable manner, substantially reformative bills requiring deeper deliberations such as the ones relating to Agricultural Markets and Labour Codes are being passed in haste.

While the pending bill included legal education under its ambit, the proposed HECI under the National Education Policy 2020 excludes the same. With the recent Supreme Court quashing of the National Legal Aptitude Exam conducted by the National Law School of India University upon genuine concerns raised by the Consortium of National Law Universities conducting the Common Law Admissions Test and the overburdening of the Bar Council of India, there is serious need to pay exclusive attention to legal education like there was to medical education. However, with the brand new National Medical Commission replacing the Medical Council of

India, the idea of having separating education and professional regulation does not seem to be on the cards. Furthermore, the fate of educational regulatory powers of the professional councils such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Institute Company Secretaries of India hangs in the balance as they were also not included in the pending bill and the National Education Policy 2020 is also silent on it.

On top of all of this, regulatory concessions given to select few institutions such as the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, IISC etc by recognising them as Institutions of National Importance and/or Institutions of Eminence further adds to the confusion and dilutes the larger policy of having a universal regulator by earmarking different rules for the more able players in the game. With more than 60 percent of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) owned privately, the need for more effective regulation is now more than ever.

A single regulator for Higher Educator for our institutions of higher education is undoubtedly a favourable policy decision but not without resolving our most fundamental issues of imparting more quality and autonomy.