The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025 (VBSA Bill) is a long-awaited measure for transforming the higher education ecosystem in India. The seed for the modern education system in India was laid down by the then British colonisers in 1854, by what is today called the Wood’s Dispatch. Over the years, the fundamental institutional framework for the higher educational system in India has remained broadly the same as envisaged in the Woods’s Dispatch as ratified in 1859. It aspired to spread modern Western knowledge in India with a view to prepare a class of educated Indians to serve as efficient Government officials. The Universities then established in the cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were modelled on the University of London.
In the post-Independent India, major intervention in terms of bringing institutional reforms in the higher education ecosystem was done by enacting the University Grants Commission Act 1956, with the stated objectives “to make provision for the co-ordination and determination of standards in the universities and for that purpose, to establish a University Grants Commission.”
In 1956, the University Grants Commission became the nucleus of the higher education ecosystem framework in India. Subsequently, to give boost to professional education in India profession-based institutional frameworks were created by the establishment of statutory professional bodies like the Medical Council of India (MCI), the Bar Council of India (BCI), the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE), the Architecture Council of India (ACI) and the Dental Council of India (DCI). All these interventions and reforms in the higher education ecosystem did strengthen the higher education ecosystem in India, but still it required a wholesome reflection, review, and redesign and re-engineering to bring it in tune with the imperatives of an incredibly aspirational India of the 21st century. The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025 is a move towards creating a transformative institutional framework for overhauling the higher education ecosystem in India in tune with the imperatives of an empowered, inclusive, aspiration-fulfilling Viksit Bharat.
Empowering Education
The core objective of the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025 is to enable and empower the Universities and other higher educational institutions to achieve excellence in teaching, learning, research and innovation and to facilitate them to become independent self-governing institutions and to promote excellence in them through a robust and transparent system of accreditation and autonomy. None of the previous interventions in the higher educational ecosystem aspired to empower the higher educational institutions to achieve excellence in such manner and to such extent as the VBSA Bill envisages. The Bill seeks to liberate higher educational institutions from the financial dependence on unreliable and invariably inadequate grants-in-aid support of the Union and State Governments. As it opens space for the higher educational institutions to become self-governing institutions, the VBSA Bill anchors them to the key objectives of attaining excellence in teaching, learning, research and innovation through a robust and transparent system of accreditation and autonomy.
Holistic Growth of Higher Education
The Bill envisages a statutorily empowered Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan as the apex educational institution in the country to inter alia, provide high level strategic direction for comprehensive and holistic growth of higher education and research in a competitive global environment. India of the 21st century is liberated from colonial straps and is rooted in its Bharatiyata and to this end the Adhishthan has the specific mandate to develop a roadmap for integration and promotion of Bharatiya knowledge, languages and arts across the multi-disciplinary higher education system.
Towards institutionalisation of a transparent and robust system of excellence, autonomy and accountability among the higher educational institutions, the VBSA Bill 2025 envisages three autonomous and independent professional councils, namely, the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Viniyaman Parishad or the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Gunvatta Parishad or the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Manak Parishad. The Viniyaman Parishad, also called the Regulatory Council, is the regulatory body under the Bill with the exclusive mandate to act as the common regulator of higher education in India. It is empowered under the Bill to “take all such steps as it may deem fit for the co-ordination and maintenance of standards and compliance of regulatory provisions in higher educational institutions.”[1] The Gunvatta Parishad, also called Accreditation Council under the Bill that has the onerous mandate to function as an accrediting body and to take measures to supervise and oversee an independent ecosystem for accreditation for the higher educational institutions in India. The Manak Parishad, also called the Standards Council under the Bill, has the mandate for the determination of academic standards in higher educational institutions. Through the Commission and three independent domain-specific Councils, the Bill seeks to establish a robust and transparent ecosystem for bringing excellence, autonomy and accountability among the higher education institutions in the country.
After creation of three independent domain-specific verticals, the existing institutional framework for higher education like the University Grants Commission and the All India Council of Technical Education etc., would lose its relevance. So the Bill proposes to repeal the Statutes establishing these institutions. Some of the key laws proposed to be repealed by the VBSA Bill are, the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987 and the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993 and the respective bodies created thereof like, the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education and the National Council for Teacher Education shall stand dissolved.
The Bill provides that every person employed on a regular basis by the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education or National Council for Teacher Education, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be employed by the Commission or any of the Councils, as may be decided by the Commission, by the same tenure, at the same remuneration and upon the same terms and conditions and with the same rights and privileges as to pension, leave, gratuity, provident fund and other matters as he would have held the same, if the VBSA Act had not been enacted and shall continue to do so unless and until his employment is terminated or until such tenure, remuneration and terms and conditions are duly altered by the rules or regulations.
Further, for a smooth transition and continuity the Bill provides that any reference to the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education and National Council for Teacher Education in any law or rule or regulation or any contract or other instrument for the time being in force, shall be construed as a reference to the Commission or any of the Councils constituted and established under this Act, as may be decided by the Commission. Overall, the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025 seeks to bring fundamental changes to empower higher educational institutions and their stakeholders with a view to inculcate an eco-system of excellence in teaching, research and innovation for the higher educational institutions which are critically indispensable to fulfil the needs and aspirations of an empowered, developed and aspiring India of the 21st century.
It will be truly admirable to see that under the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025, when enacted as a law, the Commission and Councils would serve as an efficient and capable professional institutions to transform India’s higher educational ecosystem so as to serve Viksit Bharat of 21st century where every citizen finds the fulfilment of constitutional aspirations and promises.
