Bharat SainiLast Updated on July 19, 2017 by Bharat Saini
Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA) will be the new higher education watchdog that will replace the current regulators, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). This will be the cleanest and the most sweeping reform in higher education that will eliminate all overlaps in jurisdiction and also do away with regulatory provisions that may no longer be relevant. Although, the inception of idea to replace the multiple regulatory authorities in education with a single and streamlined one had been recommended by the Yashpal Committee & the National Knowledge Commission of the UPA era; and TSR Subramanian committee & the Hari Gautam Committee set up by the present NDA government, but the reform did not take place. The decision to go ahead with this radical change was taken after a meeting on education chaired by the prime minister Narendra Modi in March, 2017; as his government has been keen for freeing up higher education and this Big-bang education reform is now on its way as the human resource development (HRD) ministry in consultation with the NITI Aayog is working on the new law and contours of HEERA:
- Objective of HEERA and the main motive behind scrapping of UGC and AICTE by a single regulator is to eliminate all overlaps in the jurisdiction and do away with regulatory provisions that may no longer be relevant.
- HEERA is aimed to put an end to the inspector raj and harassment that the UGC regime is associated with.
- The new body will also be empowered to take strong penal action when necessary.
- The separation of technical and nontechnical education is outmoded and out of sync with global practices
- Greater Synergy will be ushered in a by single regulator among institutions and in framing curricula.
The UGC has on many occasions impeded institutional autonomy at top notch universities and institutions such as in its handling of the Delhi University’s four-year undergraduate programmes (FYUP). The criticisms of the programme aside, the UGC initially allowed the programme to run for a year before scrapping it. Performance of both AICTE and UGC with respect to upholding educational standards is reflected in the less than stellar ranks Indian institutes and varsities UGC has three primary functions, and it has failed on all three counts, namely:
- Regulation of universities and certain higher education institutions such as deemed universities and autonomous colleges
- Disbursal of grants
- Deciding on and maintenance of education higher education (non-technical) standards
HEERA will largely be expected to maintain a distant oversight of the semi-autonomous universities and institutions, while regulating the lowest-rung ones. It might also fit into the scheme of things of the present government that has talked of a graded regulation system, with near-complete autonomy for the top-rung institutions, followed by tempered autonomy for middle-rung ones with government regulation earmarked for the lowest-rated institutions. The government has also proposed a quality assessment and ranking of universities and colleges by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council.
There are developed economy templates of regulation of higher education that the government could draw from while designing HEERA. In the US, for instance, regulation is based on a system of self-reporting by institutions and monitoring by regional accreditors. Accreditors evaluate institutions based on the latter’s assessment of themselves, this means a one-size-fits, all approach is shunned. Institutions failing to earn accreditation are not given support for research, infrastructure and other needs.
As far as the function of funding institutes goes, it is not clear yet whether HEERA will have to do this or not. Given how the government has announced the formation of Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) to fund development of infrastructure in premier institutes, it looks likely that at least part of the funding functions of the new higher education regulator will be hived off.
