No Clarity Yet on AICTE-UGC Merger
HRD Minister informs that no final decision has been taken on the AICTE and UGC merger.UGC regulates the universities across the country and AICTE acts as a regulator for engineering, pharmacy, management, and technical education.
The proposal regarding the merger of All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been pushed back due to the lack of structure regarding the same.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank informed that no final decision has been taken yet on the merger of UGC and AICTE.
The original proposal regarding the merger of two was floated in the year 2017. The original plan was to form one higher education regulatory body instead of two separate entities. Most developed markets in the world have a single higher education regulatory body for approving the entry of new institutes as well as for maintaining the quality of education in that particular region.
According to the reports, the proposal regarding the merger is not under consideration anymore as there was disagreement regarding the structure of the proposal.
The officials from both the regulatory bodies i.e. UGC and AICTE were unable to come to a consensus regarding the structure and several other issues regarding the merger. The merger required ahead who would lead the new body, a number of members on the board, structure, regulations and other important details.
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There are more than 70,000 educational institutions in India and one single body will not be able to handle such a huge number of educational institutions. Therefore, the idea to merge AICTE-UGC into one single entity has been pushed back and it was decided that both the institutes should continue working as two separate entities considering such a high volume of higher educational institutions in the country.