Report of the Committee to Advise on ‘Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education’ (Prof. Yashpal Committee Report)

The committee was formed in 2008 to look into reforms in higher education system of the country.

Key Recommendations of the Committee

• The academic functions of all the professional bodies (such as UGC, AICTE, MCI, and BCI) should be subsumed under an apex body for higher education called the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), formed through Constitutional amendment.
• The professional bodies should be divested of their academic functions. They should only be looking after the fitness of the people who wish to practice in their respective fields by conducting regular qualifying examination.
• Establish a National Education Tribunal with powers to adjudicate on disputes among stake-holders within institutions and between institutions so as to reduce litigation in courts involving universities and higher education institutions.
• Curricular reform should be the top-most priority of the NCHER. It should be based on the principles of mobility within a full range of curricular areas.
• Vocational education sector should be brought within the purview of universities.
• NCHER should promote research in the university system through the creation of a National Research Foundation.
• Practice of according status of deemed university be stopped till the NCHER takes a considered view on it.
• NCHER should identify the best 1500 colleges across India and upgrade them as universities.
• A national testing scheme for admission to the universities on the pattern of the GRE to be evolved which would be open to all the aspirants of university education, to be held more than once a year.
• Quantum of central financial support to state-funded universities should be enhanced substantially on an incentive pattern.
• The recommendations were taken into consideration and the draft National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) Bill was brought in 2010 but it lapsed.