Members of All India University Employees Federation, who strongly opposed the Union government’s draft Bill on setting up a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), have demanded that the University Grants Commission (UGC) be continued.
“There are issues with the existing UGC that need to be addressed but not by replacing it with another body,” said confederation secretary M.B. Sajjan in Kalaburagi on Tuesday.
The federation would discuss the HECI Bill at the All India University Employees Confederation’s 13th conference to be held at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University from October 26 to October 28.
Mr. Sajjan said that the UGC is the apex body for controlling higher education in the country; the HECI Bill would bring in new challenges in higher education. One of the major problems with the draft Bill is that it hands over all grants-related power to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and that is a sure fire recipe for corruption, he added.
The agendas of privatisation and social exclusion are strongly reflected in the draft Bill that the Ministry proposes to introduce.
He criticised the BJP-led NDA government’s move to scrap the UGC replacing it with the HECI claiming that the decision will be a major blow to marginalised students who want to pursue higher education.
The confederation would be organising a seminar to discuss the Bill in New Delhi on October 29.
Nearly one lakh people would participate in the protest rally to be held at New Delhi in February to oppose the Bill, Mr. Sajjan added.