ISAS Briefs

In recommendations submitted in December 2007, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) has recommended that the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) should be scrapped and replaced by an Independent Regulatory Authority for Higher Education (IRAHE). These aren't recommendations specific to the AICTE or management education, but general and are based on arguments about multiplicity, high entry barriers and lack of independence in regulation. However, if there is an IRAHE, roles of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and AICTE, and some other higher education councils, will change. Reacting to the NKC recommendations, Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has set up a 22-member committee chaired by Professor Yashpal to examine the future of both the AICTE and the UGC. Hence, nothing is going to change in a hurry. And lest one forgets, in 2003, there was a U.R. Rao Committee that went into the working of the AICTE. But this report was never made public.