New Delhi: The Centre has no plan to merge UGC and AICTE into a single higher education regulator, Minister of State for HRD Mahenrda Nath Pandey said in a written response in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
"No such proposal is under consideration at present, to merge the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) into a single higher education regulator," the minister said.
Worth mentioning that officials of the HRD Ministry had earlier claimed that the government would introduce Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA) replacing UGC and AICTE.
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The officials were of the view that the government would bring the change to eliminate overlaps in jurisdiction and remove irrelevant regulatory provisions.
"While the National Knowledge Commission (2006) recommended an independent regulatory authority for higher education, the Committee on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (2009) advocated an apex regulatory body by converging multiple regulatory agencies in the field of higher education.
"The UGC Review Committee in 2014 had also recommended that the commission should be replaced by an apex institution titled National Higher Education Authority," Pandey said.
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