The impending bill aims to arbitrarily dissolve the UGC and set up a Higher Education Commission of India in its place, with no power over matters of financing. It is worth examining what the stated objectives behind the dismantling of the UGC are, and then measuring them against the current state of higher education in India. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, while public universities grew at the rate of 21.6 per cent, the private university network has swelled by a staggering 48 per cent. At this rate, in another 11 years, private universities will outnumber government universities in India. The HECI, if allowed to replace the UGC, cannot but hurl the nation’s ‘knowledge ecology’ towards the same fate as its current economy.

Source: The Telegraph October 17, 2019 19:30 UTC