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NEW DELHI: A parliamentary standing committee has flagged a leadership vacuum at the University Grants Commission (UGC) and called for urgent systemic reforms at the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), saying the accreditation regime is “long and bureaucratic” and its credibility must be restored “with the utmost urgency”.The panel noted that “the position of the chairperson, UGC, has been vacant since April 2025” and reminded the government that as per the National Education Policy, “leadership positions shall not remain vacant, but rather an overlapping time period during transitions in leadership shall be the norm”. It therefore “recommends that a new Chairperson should be appointed for the UGC as soon as possible”.On NAAC, the 371st Report of the Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, stated, “the current process of accreditation/re-accreditation is long and bureaucratic, with five yearly re-accreditation and yearly reports that demand considerable time from University administrators”. It added that “NAAC’s accreditation process for HEIs needs to be streamlined so that the whole process is quick and without unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles”.Referring to the bribery case involving NAAC, the report said: “there is an investigation ongoing into a recent case of bribery in the NAAC” and recommended that “a thorough internal investigation should be initiated in the matter and findings of the investigation may be shared with the Committee”. While acknowledging “the revision in the grading of about 200 institutions and the removal of about 900 peer assessors”, it said “the restoration of the NAAC’s credibility is of the utmost urgency”.On the overlap between NAAC and rankings, the panel said, “in this context, the NAAC’s grading of institutions is extraneous” and backed a simpler model. “A binary accreditation model… would be simpler to implement, ease the bureaucratic process, and limit the scope for discretion in the NAAC’s grading,” it said, noting that it “was scheduled to be implemented in July 2024 but has been delayed” and urging “the early implementation of the same”.The committee also flagged delays in the UGC’s equity framework. On the Draft UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, it said “there has been a considerable delay in finalising these draft regulations” and recommended that they “must explicitly include the harassment of students and other stakeholders from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs)”, disability-based discrimination, and provide for “annual public disclosure of caste-based discrimination cases”.
