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VBSA: Time for Indian universities to push forward
This article is authored by Commodore SR Sridhar (retd), registrar, IIIT, Bangalore.
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The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill (VBSA), 2025, represents an important opportunity to rethink how higher education is regulated in India. The Bill seeks to bring greater coherence to a regulatory landscape that has evolved over several decades, with the UGC, AICTE and NCTE performing different regulatory functions. The proposed framework, with separate Councils for Regulation, Standards and Accreditation, is intended to simplify regulation, harmonise standards and provide greater autonomy to high-performing institutions.
The government deserves credit for attempting a reform of this scale. Higher education has expanded enormously in both size and complexity, and a regulatory framework designed for an earlier era inevitably needs to evolve. The government's stated emphasis on a technology-driven single-window system, public disclosure, trust-based regulation and enhanced institutional autonomy is particularly welcome.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the Bill has been undertaking consultations across the country, seeking the views of universities, experts and other stakeholders. Such consultations are valuable because the success of regulatory reform will ultimately be determined not only by the legislation itself, but by how it works in the everyday life of a university.
Why is such a change necessary?
A university today often has to navigate multiple regulatory frameworks, sometimes addressing closely related aspects of academic and institutional functioning. Consider something as fundamental as the faculty-student ratio. Technical programmes have traditionally been subject to AICTE requirements, while universities operate within the broader UGC framework. Depending on the nature of the institution and its programmes, there can be different requirements relating to faculty strength, cadre composition, qualifications and programme structures.
The issue is not that these standards are unnecessary. On the contrary, minimum standards are essential to protect quality. The difficulty arises when different regulatory frameworks prescribe requirements from different perspectives, leaving universities to reconcile multiple sets of expectations.
Similar challenges can arise in relation to programme approvals, intake, infrastructure requirements, faculty qualifications, reporting and inspections. A university offering programmes across disciplines may find itself interacting with different regulatory regimes for different components of its academic activity. The Bill itself recognises the problem of multiple approvals and inspections and seeks to address duplication and over-regulation.
This is where the promise of the new Bill lies.
India does not need less regulation. It needs better regulation.
Minimum standards should establish a baseline for quality, but they should not become a ceiling for excellence. An institution that has demonstrated sustained academic performance, strong accreditation, sound governance, financial integrity and transparent functioning should progressively enjoy greater institutional autonomy.
It is hoped that the Bill will ultimately fructify in the spirit and ethos encapsulated by:
- Less regulation: fewer routine approvals, less detailed prescription and greater space for institutional initiative.
- Empower institutions: greater freedom for academic innovation, research and institutional development.
- Accountability: autonomy accompanied by accreditation, transparency, financial integrity and protection of student interests.
- Progress towards global excellence: creating the conditions for Indian universities to become globally competitive institutions.
For self-financing, not-for-profit institutions, regulation should focus increasingly on outcomes, student welfare, financial integrity and transparency rather than routine approvals. Greater autonomy should extend to curriculum design, teaching and assessment, research, faculty recruitment and promotion, student selection, internal administration and institutional innovation.
There is also a larger national objective.
If India wants its universities to compete with the best institutions globally, they must have the freedom to innovate, create interdisciplinary programmes, establish research centres, recruit outstanding faculty and researchers, attract international students and build global research partnerships. Regulation should provide the guardrails within which this can happen; it should not become a roadblock to institutional ambition.
At the same time, the transition to a new regulatory architecture must be handled carefully. The creation of a new structure, by itself, will not guarantee a new regulatory culture. The real test of the reform will be whether institutions experience greater clarity, consistency, predictability and trust.
A change in institutional structure will have lasting value only if it is accompanied by a corresponding change in the way institutions are regulated.
If multiple layers of approvals, detailed prescriptions and procedural compliance simply reappear in a different form, the intended benefits of reform may not fully materialise. The opportunity before us is therefore much greater than merely reorganising existing regulatory bodies.
The new framework can move Indian higher education from a culture of permission to a culture of performance; from detailed prescription to outcomes; and from routine intervention to trust backed by accountability.
The objective should be simple; stating strong standards, rigorous accountability and genuine institutional autonomy.
The government has opened an important door. The task now is to ensure that the regulatory framework that emerges from this process gives Indian universities both the freedom to aspire and the accountability to deliver.
The Viksit Bharat vision requires Indian universities not merely to comply with global standards, but to have the freedom and confidence to set new ones.
The success of this reform should ultimately be measured not by how much we regulate our universities, but by how effectively we enable good universities to become great ones.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Commodore SR Sridhar (retd), registrar, IIIT, Bangalore.
