Yashpal Committee Report

Yashpal Committee was set up in February, 2008 to advise on “renovation and rejuvenation of higher education” in India. The major recommendations of the committee include:
i. Creation of an all-encompassing National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER), a Constitutional body to replace the existing regulatory bodies including the UGC, AICTE, NCTE and DEC;
ii. Universities to be made responsible regarding the academic content of all courses and programmes of study including professional courses. Professional bodies like the AICTE, NCTE, MCI, BCI, COA,INC, PCI etc. to be divested of their academic functions, which would be restored to the universities;
iii. Curricular reform to be the topmost priority of the newly created NCHER which would create a curricular framework based on the principles of mobility within a full range of curricular areas and integration of skills with academic depth;
iv. It should be mandatory for all universities to have a rich undergraduate programme and undergraduate students must get opportunities to interact with the best faculty;
v. Undergraduate programs to be restructured to enable students to have opportunities to access all curricular areas with fair degree of mobility;
vi. The vocational education sector should be brought under the purview of universities and by providing necessary accreditation to the courses available in polytechnics, industrial training institutions, and so on;
vii. The NCHER should also galvanize research in the university system through the creation of a National Research Foundation;
viii. New governing structures to be evolved to enable the universities to preserve their autonomy in a transparent and accountable manner;
ix. Practice of according status of deemed university be stopped forthwith till the NCHER takes a considered view on it.
x. Modern higher education system requires extension facilities, sophisticated equipment and highly specialized knowledge and competent teachers. Hence, one of the primary tasks of the NCHER to create several inter-university centres (IUCs) in diverse fields to create the best of these possibilities and attract the participation of several institutions of higher learning to avail them;
xi. Institutions of excellence like the IITs and IIMs to be encouraged to diversify and expand their scope to work as full-fledged universities;
xii. One of the first tasks of the NCHER should be to identify the best 1,500 colleges across India to upgrade them as universities, and create clusters of other potentially good colleges to evolve as universities.
xiii. Universities to establish live relationship with the real world outside and develop capacities to respond to the challenges faced by rural and urban economies and culture;
xiv. All levels of teacher education to be brought under the purview of higher education;
xv. 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 . Students would be permitted to send their best test score to the university of their choice.
xvi. Quantum of Central financial support to State-funded universities be enhanced substantially on an incentive pattern, keeping in view the needs for their growth;
xvii. Expansion of the higher education system to be evaluated and assessed continuously to excel and to respond to the needs of different regions in India in order to ensure not only equity and access but also quality and opportunity of growth along the academic vertical.