By Prof Husain Aanis Khan
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 (the ‘Bill’) has been sent for a review to a 31-member panel, Joint Parliamentary Committee. The Bill aims to revamp the Indian higher education regulatory structure for the first time since India achieved its independence. It is a step towards ‘Viksit Bharat’ which translates into English as: developed India. Remarkably, the Bill aims to make India a global education destination and meet international standards. But—will such higher education development be inclusive for students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds?
It can be made inclusive through moral educational leadership. Let’s analyse this further.
Clause 4 of the Bill states that the legislative aim is “to provide an effective, enabling and responsive system of regulation to encourage integrity, excellence and public-spiritedness in higher education…”. To achieve the aims, the clause enlists three guiding principles. Of the principles is “to focus on system outcomes and not solely on inputs, through a transparent system that provides intellectual and moral leadership.”
“Moral leadership” mandate needs to be strengthened to fulfill the legislative aims Bill. The moral leadership mandate should obligate the Regulatory Commission, or any of the three Councils it creates, to encourage inclusion in Indian higher education by introducing measures for preadmission inclusion (to enhance enrolment/access) and postadmission inclusion. Postadmission inclusion would refer to inclusive educational experience of students, after they have taken admission in an institution. Unless inclusion is mentioned explicitly in the Bill as a goal and as a regulatory function, it will likely take a backseat in the pursuit of higher education development. Inclusion is sometimes a cost—a legitimate cost to be clear—on the government and educational institutions.
Preadmission inclusion through access
Regulatory Council is one of the three Councils that the Bill establishes; the three of them will work on the Directions of the Regulatory Commission. To enhance preadmission inclusion, one of the functions of the Regulatory Council must be to enhance access to higher education for all eligible students, subject to the availability of resources. This is a preadmission measure because access measures are introduced for students before students have formally enrolled in an institution.
Indian courts did not explicitly declare higher education as a fundamental right in India. The State does remain obligated to enhance access to higher education for students from deprived social groups. The Supreme Court of India observed in Farzana Batool v. Union of India (2024) that: “While the right to pursue higher (professional) education has not been spelt out as a fundamental right in Part III of the Constitution, it bears emphasis that access to professional education is not a governmental largesse. Instead, the State has an affirmative obligation to facilitate access to education, at all levels”.
So, the moral leadership mandate in the Bill should include the obligation to facilitate access of all eligible students to higher education, particularly the ones from equity-deserving groups.
No contest, access is the first laudable step towards providing education that is inclusive in all its phases. But access does not guarantee or facilitate postadmission inclusion. I use the term postadmission inclusion to refer to the inclusion that students experience in an educational institution after they have taken admission.
Postadmission inclusion through empathy
To encourage postadmission inclusion in Indian higher education, more details should be added to the moral leadership mandate in the Bill. It should get regulatory authorities to encourage Vice Chancellors, Deans, Directors and other educational leaders to adopt an empathetic approach towards students. Encouraging empathy towards students is one way, among many others, to strengthen the mandate.
Clause 11 of the Bill obligates the Regulatory Council to take steps for the co-ordination and maintenance of standards and compliance of regulatory provisions in higher educational institutions. One of its functions is “to require that students have free access to a fair, transparent and robust grievance redressal mechanism”. But this mandate is insufficient for postadmission inclusion. The Bill should mandate empathy towards students as an underpinning philosophy of staff members for conducting fair, transparent, and robust grievance redressal. Otherwise, students would, for being young and financially dependent, remain unfairly subordinate to staff members of educational institutions. The grievance redressal system should not permit the staff any scope to unfairly influence the system.
If the Bill is passed and enforced in the current form, it may successfully revamp and develop higher education with impressive “system outcomes”, but the success of the Bill would remain underwhelming—unless it establishes preadmission- and postadmission inclusion obligations as part of the moral leadership that the Bill mandates.
Husain is an Assistant Professor at the International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Building, OP Jindal Global University.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETEDUCATION does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETEDUCATION will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.
