Merger Of Education Regulators Will Happen This Year: AICTE

Key structural reforms in the education sector, especially the merger of regulators leading to the creation of Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), will happen this year, AICTE Chairman said. The HECI will be a single overarching umbrella body for higher education, as per the NEP 2020.

Key structural reforms in the education sector, especially the merger of regulators leading to the creation of Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), will happen this year, AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe said here on Thursday. The HECI will be a single overarching umbrella body for higher education, as per the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. "All regulatory bodies including the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), University Grants Commission (UGC) and National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE) will be merged to form the HECI. This will come into effect this year," Mr Sahasrabudhe said. Speaking at the one-day national conference on "Salient features of approval process of handbook (2021-2022) for resetting technical education and implementing NEP", he said the NEP had several features benefiting students, faculty and institutions. "It creates a window of opportunities.For instance, top 100 institutions in the national ranking can tie-up with foreign institutions figuring in the top 500 in global ranking for academic and research collaboration and twinning," he said. Blaming a section of media for the "confusion" that Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry are not mandatory for admissions to undergraduate engineering and technology, Mr Sahasrabudhe said "it is absolutely elementary." Without these one can't complete education in engineering, he said.