Stripping higher education of states’ control

The draft guidelines issued on January 7 by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to appoint vice chancellors is all likely to be seen as an attempt to remote control universities and higher education. It seems to be yet another step to curtail state’s role in higher education and transfer the administrative powers to the bodies mandated to coordinate the academic institutions in gross violation of the spirit of federalism. Education is on the concurrent list under the Constitution and allows freedom to states to formulate syllabus and make key appointments in sync with diverse history, linguistic and cultural credos.

With the draft UGC (Minimum Qualification for Appointment and Promotion of Teachers and Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations, 2025, the Centre seeks to alter the format and nature of higher education. The regulations vest the power of appointing vice chancellors with Chancellors who are governors of the state and by extension are appointees of the Central Government. Given the nature of occupants of the Raj Bhavans, mainly in non-BJP ruled states, under the current central dispensation and the reports of their fractious ties with State governments, it needs no extraordinary wisdom as to how the draft rules envisage establishing stranglehold of the Centre.

In fact, the fracas between the Governors and governments in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, leave no room for doubt as to the scenario unfolding in states. Further on, the search committees for VCs will have no representative of the State Government on it. The VCs need not be from academic stream and may be taken from industries, institutions working on public policy or from administration or business. Even requirement of PhD or teaching experience is not being insisted upon. The overriding powers sought to be vested in the UGC, contravenes the framework of the UGC as well as the federal spirit of the Constitution. The move is likely to be countered by academicians, and governments of non-BJP ruled states as they seem to carry the stamp of cultural homogenisation, the pet obsession of the Centre which came up with legislations like ‘One Nation, One Election’, ‘One Nation, One Tax System’ etc.