VBSA Bill 2025: Threat to Federalism and Future of Higher Education in India

Prof Arun Kumar

The first education policy in 1968 and the second in 1986 emphasised a public-sector-centred approach to education. In India in the early 1990s, private-sector interventions in education began through public-private partnerships. What started as maintaining proportions gradually saw the ‘public’ component shrink and the ‘private’ component expand, leading to complete privatisation. Just as the public sector stagnated across the board, corporate forces gained control there too. What we see in the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) Bill 2025 is the legislative culmination and legal endorsement of the National Education Policy 2020.

At first glance, the Bill’s provisions impose greater control over higher education, eliminate federalism and institutional academic autonomy, and accelerate corporatisation and commercialisation. It is truly a process of subjecting an entire generation to ‘academic de-generation’, rendering it incapable of questioning or offering criticism. An education process that is not at all reproductive is not useful for a nation. It is therefore that the Indian Knowledge System (IKS) has been introduced in the curriculum. India is marked by diversity in languages, cultures, castes, religions, customs, and beliefs. The provisions of this Bill destroy diversity and promote uniformity. ‘Unity in diversity’ is being changed to ‘no diversity, only uniformity.’

The VBSVP (Viksit Bharat Shiksha Vinimayan Parishad), VBSMP (Viksit Bharat Shiksha Manak Parishad) and VBSGP (Viksit Bharat Shiksha Gunvatta Parishad) are established as three special empowered councils under VBSA. The first is the national-level regulatory council; the second sets outcomes, qualifications, and minimum standards; and the third is the accreditation council. In reality, UGC, AICTE, and NCTE have been abolished, and VBSA has become a single body. Moreover, the centre is completely withdrawing from the responsibility of granting funds to state universities, affiliated institutions, and teachers. Not only are ‘central grants’ completely stopped, but VBSA also gains the power to impose heavy fines of 10 to 75 lakhs rupees on higher education institutions. In short, there is a clear shift from a ‘funding agency’ to a ‘fine-levying agency. 

Under the new Bill's provisions, all stakeholders in higher education become mere facilitators. This Bill grants no democratic rights to teachers, students or anyone. It must be read alongside the New Labour Code, which overturns all labour laws. Education, which moved from the state list to the concurrent list, now receives further impetus from this Bill for those seeking to shift it fully to the central list through its emphasis on centralisation of power. If control of the 12-member committee comes fully under the central government, it won’t take much thought to understand what interests it will reflect. State Higher Education Councils, formed with a primacy of state interests and progressive quality standards in higher education, should have authority in their respective jurisdictions. A single system of education, both in structure and in content, is against the fundamental principles of the Indian Constituitional values. Constitutionally speaking, education is a concurrent subject. The coordination of standards, accreditation, and regulations in higher education should be legislated as a shared responsibility. The Union Government, as well as the State Governments, should play a role in determining standards, accreditation, and regulations. Currently, the VBSA does not treat this task as a shared responsibility of the Union and the States. The determination of standards, accreditation, and regulations cannot be a top-down affair.

Currently, it is the individual states that are the primary financers of their higher education systems. Block grants need to be provided for teaching and research in an integrated way. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), as established, does not provide for block grants. It follows the hub-and-spoke model and supports those who already have an advantage. It does not offer social and interregional equity. Private-sector higher education institutions do not provide for equity and social justice. The alternate legislation should provide for the enforcement of affirmative action. The provisions in the VBSA Bill would convert all educational institutions into autonomous institutions, thereby threatening the very existence of institutions in rural areas. It would also result in a scenario in which even institutions funded by State Governments would not be accountable to the State; instead, they would come directly under the control of this regulatory council.

Over the past decade, the UGC has not provided financial assistance to higher education institutions for the upgradation of infrastructure and academic facilities. In the absence of adequate strengthening of domestic institutions, the establishment of foreign university campuses in India could be fatal to the existence of Indian institutions. Additionally, these campuses are likely to remain inaccessible to students from marginalised and economically weaker sections. The provisions in this bill will have a significant impact on faculty salaries in higher education, as under the current system, salary structure and qualifications are interlinked within the same regulatory framework. By treating qualifications merely as part of minimum standards, periodic salary revisions may be adversely affected. Moreover, the engagement of distinguished experts from various fields in higher education may also be affected; in some cases, this could affect the quality of teaching, as expertise alone may not substitute for the required academic qualifications and pedagogical training. Priority should be given to State Higher Education Councils (SHECs). What is actually needed at the central level is a Higher Education Grants Council. States must be seen as ‘partners’, and the centre should not view states as ‘subordinates’ that bow their heads in obedience to orders in the federal power structure. 

The alternate bill should give at least 50 per cent weightage to the process to be carried out by the SHECs. Neither of these councils can be given full power to determine everything, nor can 100 per cent weight be given to the above-mentioned councils in the alternate bill. The process should be executed as a shared responsibility. The SHECs can be assigned the responsibility for determining, accrediting, and regulating state-specific standards. The state governments can and should be expected to prioritise areas such as school education, the environment, climate change, local resource rejuvenation, and local economic development. The SHECs should be delegated the role and function of proactively coordinating the participation of higher education institutions in the determination and realisation of standards, and in contributing to accreditation and regulatory processes. The priorities would differ state-wise, and the prescribed weightages are expected to vary. 

We believe that the Union Government determined process of standards determination, accreditation and regulation should be given the other 50 per cent weight and focus on the goals of space for inter-regional equity, linguistic and cultural autonomy, social justice, national level innovation, fundamental science, new technologies, global excellence, and other such responsibilities of the Union Government Ministries such as health, industry, foreign affairs, defense, energy security and so on. 

The alternative bill should provide for the federal approach, and the reporting function should be structured as a system of reporting to parliament. The institutional structure for standards, accreditation, and regulation would need a funding mechanism incorporated into each vertical, with approval taken from the parliament. As this apparatus will have to assume responsibility for creating enabling funding mechanisms, collaboration, and handholding among the state-sector and central-sector HEIs as a joint collaborative process, it should not report to the PMO but to the Central Council (Commission) to be established as a federal mechanism. 

Any process of revamping the entire higher education system across the country should not be harmful or detrimental to the better service conditions of the faculties or to the interests of the stakeholders. We are of the strong view that the introduction of the VBSA Bill (2025) would definitely create many issues in reservation-related policy matters, resulting in the marginalisation of the socially and educationally deprived sector. The alternative bill needs to address this concern. The alternative bill will have to explicitly provide for bridging the gap to guarantee public purpose, ensure quality, and improve access to higher education for all sections of society.