However, the bill will not encompass medical and law colleges within its purview.

According to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the bill will have three major roles: regulation, accreditation, and setting professional standards. However, the fourth vertical, pertaining to funding, will not be covered by the HECI bill, and the autonomy for funding will remain under the purview of the administrative ministry.

Upon enactment, the bill is anticipated to supplant the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). The UGC currently governs non-technical higher education, the AICTE is responsible for technical education, and the NCTE functions as the regulatory authority for teacher education.

Furthermore, according to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the HECI bill will soon be introduced in Parliament. However, even after its introduction, the bill will undergo scrutiny by a standing committee, a crucial step to ensure a thorough examination and refinement of the proposed legislation before it becomes law.

In 2018, a draft bill titled the “Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill” was made available to the public for input and discussion. This bill aimed to replace the UGC Act and establish the Higher Education Commission of India. Upon becoming the Education Minister in 2021, Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan redoubled efforts to advance the implementation of the HECI bill.

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University Grants Commission (UGC)’s draft ‘Guidelines for Incorporating Indian Knowledge in Higher Education Curricula’ proposes these initiatives to help colleges and universities to improvise courses and programs based on Indian Knowledge System for students.

The students will have an understanding to how the knowledge of the past can be linked with the contemporary education which will help them find new perspectives to build sustainable human communities. It was introduced as a concept in the NEP 2020.

IKS can be defined as a body of systematized disciplines of knowledge developed to a high degree of sophistication from ancient times and of all traditions and practices that various communities of India, including the tribal communities of India have practiced, , evolved and preserved for generations.

Every student is required to take credit courses in IKS, which at least amounts to 5 percent of their total mandate courses. It is only a student is able to obtain a degree. The 50% of the total credits for IKS must be related to a major and is also to be accounted to that particular major discipline.  That is, if a student who pursues BSc in science with Maths as his/her major, then he or she is required to take up a course related to IKS. In this case, it might be ‘numbers, fractions, and geometry in Vedas’.

For students who pursue modern medicine, a credit course has been proposed in the first year by the UGC and a two semester credit course on ‘theory and practice’ of Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Siddha, Homeopathy, Yoga, and Unani.

“ancient records of the observation of the motion  of celestial bodies in the Vedic corpus”, “ astronomy as the science of determination of time” , “place and direction by observing the motion of the celestial bodies” are some of the suggested courses by UGC in the field of astronomy. The other courses suggested as per the guide lines include “Splendid geographical isolation of India and the uniqueness of Indian culture”, “Ramayana and Mahabharata, and their important regional versions”, “Puranas”, Foundational texts of Indian Philosophies”, including the “Jaina and Bauddha”, and “foundational texts of Indian religious sampradayas, from the Vedic period to the Bhakti traditions of different regions”.

UGC has made the draft public to receive feedback till April 30. It has also has also sent the guidelines to universities and colleges for their suggestions.

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Keeping relevant alignment to the NEP (National Education Policy) 2020, which promotes “no hard separations” between vocational and academic courses, the NCrF was launched by the UGC in October 2022. According to this framework, the school education system can be brought under a single credit system.

The framework allows students to earn credits through school education, higher education, and vocational and skill education. A total of 30 hours have been allotted for learning each credit and will vary based on the learning hours from Class 5 to PhD level.

Credits will be rewarded based on the assessment of a large number of skills, including classroom learning/teaching,  laboratory work, games and sports, yoga, performing arts like music, dance, etc; fine arts like painting, handicraft; social work, NCC, and many more.

UGC Chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar has stated that students will now get a chance to study the IKS as a part of their school curriculum.

The final draft of the NCrF has included IKS under the “special achievers” category, unlike its first draft released in October. It has named 18 “vidyas” (or theoretical disciplines) and 64 “kalas” (applied sciences, vocational skills and crafts) as eligible for creditization.

According to the final document, the 18 major sciences in ancient India were formed on the basis of a number of texts, including the four subsidiary Vedas – Ayurveda (medicine), Dhanurveda (weaponry), Gandharveda (music) and Shilpa (architecture); Purana, Nayaya, Mimansa, Dharmashastra, Vedanga, the six auxiliary sciences, phonetic, grammar, metre, astronomy, ritual, and philosophy.

The UGC Chairperson had also added that plans of integrating IKS to the higher education systems were also in full swing.

Besides IKS, the other skills that are eligible for creditization are personalized arts; master craftsmen of heritage and traditional skills; social work in high-impact areas such as education, health care, and anti-drugs; innovation and start-ups. The final draft of the NCrF has stated that the credits must be awarded on the basis of a pre-defined requisition to hone any skill, along with the criteria for “special achievements” in all skills.

The draft further clarified, “The special achievement could be winning medals or holding positions in national or international events, Padma or other awards conferred by central or state governments or other recognised bodies, high-impact high-priority social work which could be duly assessed through independent assessment methods.”

The Ministry of Education has been planning on integrating the IKS into the educational curriculums for a fairly long time, and this draft poses as one of the many initiatives for that purpose. The government has already been proactive in creating an IKS division in the AICTE since 2020, to promote interdisciplinary research based on types of indigenous knowledge. This division in the AICTE has accelerated the growth of research centres and designed various IKS courses for students to pursue.

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CUET PG 2022 examination was conducted by NTA for admissions in to PG Programmes for academic session 2022- 2023 in UGC funded central universities and state, private, deemed-to-be universities.

“The results of the CUET PG 2022 are expected to be declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) tomorrow, September 26 by 4pm. You are therefore requested to make necessary preparations for admissions, including website and web portals, so that the PG admission process may be timely started, based on the CUET score,” reads the official notification of UGC.

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UGC Chairman Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar said that the Commission has sought the details for admission to UG programmes on the basis of CUET-2022 in 45 Central universities across the country. Under this, varsities have been asked about the preparations they have made for admission on the basis of CUET score cards.

Details regarding the merit list, status of admission portal, when students can apply for admission and the last date to apply for admission are the details sought by the UGC.

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The committee, set up by UGC chairperson Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, will identify areas where the two bodies can work together towards drawing up policies and regulations. Members of the panel include vice-chairpersons of UGC and AICTE, as well as the UGC secretary and AICTE member-secretary.

“The development of a joint working strategy is in many ways the harbinger of the proposed Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). After all, regulations on higher education affect students pursuing general as well as technical degrees or courses,” said Prof Kumar.

“The committee has been entrusted with identifying areas where the two regulators can work together,” said Kumar. “A separate set of sub-committees, comprising officials of the two regulators, will work on those areas. The idea is to prepare the system to adapt to a situation where HECI will be the overarching body of higher education.”

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Delhi, the state with the highest number, has eight fake universities — All India Institute of Public & Physical Health Sciences, Commercial University Ltd. Daryaganj, United Nations University, Vocational University, ADR-Centric Juridical University, Indian Institution of Science and Engineering, Viswakarma Open University for Self-employment, Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya (Spiritual University).

Uttar Pradesh with seven such fake universities — Gandhi Hindi Vidyapith, National University of Electro Complex Homeopathy, Netaji Subhash chandra Bose University (open university), Bhartiya Shiksha Parishad.

Universities from Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh are also listed.

“Students and Public at large are hereby informed that presently following 21 self-styled, unrecognized institutions which are functioning in contravention of the UGC Act, have been declared as fake universities and these are not empowered to confer any degree,” said the official document.

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The UGC notification read: “Several entrance examinations including CUET, JEE Main, JEE Advance, etc., have been delayed, due to which admissions may continue up to October, 2022. In view above, and in order to avoid financial hardships being faced by parents, it has been decided by UGC that full refund of fees should be made by the higher educational institutions on account of all cancellations of admissions/migrations of students up to October 31, 2022 for the academic session 2022- 2023 as a special case…Thereafter, on cancellation/ withdrawal of admissions up to December 31, 2022, the entire fee collected from a student should be refunded in full after deducting not more than Rs.1000/- as processing fee.

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However, the universities and colleges can charge a processing fee, which should not be more than 1000 rupees, if the admissions are cancelled or withdrawn between October 31 and December 31, 2022.

The statement issued by the UGC read, “It has been decided by UGC that full refund of fees should be made by the higher educational institutions on account of all cancellations of admissions/ migrations of students up to October 31, 2022 for the academic session 2022-23 as a special case.”

This notification is in the wake of the delay of admission procedures for several entrance examinations that may continue up to October 2022.

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