In what could become the most significant education reform in decades, Parliament is poised to debate a bill that will dismantle India’s long-standing higher education regulatory architecture and replace it with a single overarching authority.

When the Winter Session begins on December 1, the government plans to table the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, officially marking the push to phase out bodies such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

The reform — rooted in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 — seeks to end the fragmented regulatory structure that has governed universities and professional institutions for decades.

Currently, the UGC oversees non-technical education, the AICTE supervises technical degrees, and the NCTE regulates teacher-training programmes. Under the proposed system, all three domains will fall under a single regulator.

However, the Bill will not extend to medical or legal education, which will remain under their existing regulatory bodies — a key carve-out designed to maintain sector-specific oversight.

The new commission is expected to operate on three core functions: regulation, accreditation and the setting of academic and professional standards. Funding powers, notably, will not shift to HECI and will continue to be managed by the administrative ministry — a deliberate separation meant to ensure clear boundaries between regulation and financial governance.

The idea of a unified regulator has been in circulation for years. A draft HECI Bill released in 2018 — then framed around repealing the UGC Act — invited extensive public feedback but never moved forward. The effort gained renewed traction in 2021 after Dharmendra Pradhan took charge as Union Education Minister, with policy teams intensifying work to shape the final legislative format.

The NEP-2020 makes an unequivocal case for restructuring the current regulatory regime, arguing that India’s higher education system requires a “complete overhaul” to enable academic institutions to grow globally and function without overlapping mandates.

It calls for the separation of four pillars — regulation, accreditation, funding and academic standard-setting — with each to be handled by independent bodies.

The introduction of the HECI Bill now sets the stage for a defining debate in Parliament — one that will determine whether India’s higher education system finally transitions to the single-regulator model envisioned for more than a decade.

The outcome is expected to have far-reaching implications for universities, colleges, faculty and millions of students across the country.