Regulatory Agencies Governing Higher Education in India

India’s higher education system is one of the largest and most diverse in the world. Managing it effectively requires a layered structure of regulatory bodies – each with a distinct but interconnected role. At the national level, the University Grants Commission (UGC) sets the overarching framework. At the state level, State Councils of Higher Education translate national policies into regional action. And cutting across both, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) certifies that institutions are actually delivering quality education. Together, these three bodies form the backbone of higher education governance in India.

University Grants Commission (UGC): the national anchor 🔗

The UGC is the apex statutory body governing higher education in India. Established as a statutory organization by an Act of Parliament in 1956, it operates under the Ministry of Education, Government of India. Its core mandate covers three interconnected functions: coordination, determination, and maintenance of standards of teaching, examination, and research in university education.

The idea of a central body like the UGC didn’t emerge overnight. Its roots go back to the Sargeant Report of 1944, which recommended the creation of a University Grants Committee to oversee higher education in colonial India. Post-independence, the University Education Commission of 1948-49, chaired by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, reinforced this recommendation. The UGC was formally inaugurated on 28 December 1953 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and became a full statutory body three years later.

What the UGC actually does 🔗

The UGC holds a unique dual mandate that no other body in India shares. It is the only regulatory authority vested with both grant allocation and standard-setting functions – providing funds to eligible universities and colleges while simultaneously advising the central and state governments on measures needed for higher education development.

Beyond funding, the UGC performs several critical functions. It grants formal recognition to universities – a degree from an unrecognized institution holds no legal validity in India. It regulates “Deemed University” status under Section 3 of the UGC Act. It also promotes research through grants and scholarships, and has established the Consortium for Academic Research and Ethics (CARE) to improve research integrity and publication standards across Indian institutions.

In recent years, the UGC has aligned itself closely with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Key initiatives include allowing students to pursue two academic programmes simultaneously, enabling academic collaboration between Indian and foreign institutions for joint and dual-degree programmes, and introducing the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) in 2021, which allows students to accumulate and transfer credits across institutions – a step toward more flexible, multidisciplinary learning pathways.

The UGC operates from its headquarters in New Delhi and six regional offices – in Bangalore, Bhopal, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Pune – ensuring its reach across the country.

Evolving role and proposed reforms 🔗

The UGC’s structure has not gone unchallenged. The NEP 2020 envisions its eventual replacement by a broader body called the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI), which would subsume the UGC’s regulatory functions while separating funding decisions from academic oversight. However, the UGC’s core principles of quality and accountability are expected to carry forward into any new institutional arrangement.

State Councils of Higher Education: localized governance 🔗

National standards are important, but they cannot account for every regional reality. A rural district in Assam faces very different educational challenges from an urban centre in Maharashtra. This is precisely the gap that State Councils of Higher Education (SCHEs) are designed to fill.

Following the National Policy on Education, respective state governments established SCHEs to prepare coordinated programmes of development of higher education in each state. These councils act as the bridge between the UGC’s national framework and the specific needs of local institutions and students.

Functions of State Councils 🔗

SCHEs carry out a range of responsibilities that are both administrative and developmental. Their key functions include:

Policy formulation: SCHEs help design state-specific higher education policies that reflect local demographic and socio-economic conditions, coordinating these with national guidelines issued by the UGC.

Supervision of state universities: They provide guidance to state universities, ensuring compliance with both state policies and broader academic standards.

Facilitating collaboration: SCHEs encourage partnerships between state universities and national or international institutions to improve educational quality.

Quality and accreditation support: They work closely with bodies like NAAC to help institutions within the state meet accreditation requirements.

State-specific examples 🔗

The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE), established in 1988, holds the distinction of being the first such council in India. It has been instrumental in coordinating admissions across universities, advising on curriculum reforms based on local employment needs, and monitoring national policy implementation at the state level.

Other councils have developed their own distinct priorities. The Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education (TANSCHE), established by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 1992, coordinates state-level programmes with those of the UGC and works toward improving higher education access for underprivileged communities. The Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) focuses on research promotion, faculty development, and international academic engagement, while the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education handles institutional approvals, affiliation processes, and NAAC preparation workshops for colleges across the state.

Challenges SCHEs face 🔗

Despite their important role, State Councils face persistent challenges. Financial constraints often limit the scale of reforms they can initiate. Varying levels of state investment in education lead to uneven quality across states, which remains one of the most visible disparities in India’s higher education landscape. Bureaucratic inefficiencies and inadequate coordination with central bodies can also slow down policy implementation on the ground.

NAAC: certifying quality through accreditation 🔗

While the UGC sets standards and SCHEs implement regional policy, NAAC answers a more fundamental question: are institutions actually delivering quality education? The National Assessment and Accreditation Council was established in 1994 as an autonomous institution of the UGC, headquartered in Bengaluru, in direct response to growing concerns about educational quality in the wake of rapid expansion of higher education institutions.

Its founding was rooted in the National Policy on Education (1986) and the Programme of Action (1992), which collectively called for an independent national accreditation body to address “deterioration in quality of education.” As of June 2023, NAAC had accredited 820 universities and 15,501 colleges across India – a testament to the scale of its operations.

How the accreditation process works 🔗

NAAC’s Assessment and Accreditation (A&A) process is multi-layered and rigorous. Institutions must first be in existence for at least six years or have produced at least two batches of graduates before they are eligible to apply. The process broadly involves the following steps:

Step 1 – IIQA submission: Institutions submit their Institutional Information for Quality Assessment (IIQA), the initial eligibility document, through the NAAC portal.

Step 2 – Self Study Report (SSR): Once the IIQA is accepted, institutions prepare a detailed Self Study Report covering all seven assessment criteria – curriculum design, teaching-learning processes, research output, infrastructure, student support, governance, and institutional values.

Step 3 – Data Validation and Verification (DVV): NAAC verifies the data submitted by institutions through a system-generated scoring mechanism, which accounts for 70% of the final score.

Step 4 – Peer team visit: An expert team visits the institution physically to inspect facilities, interact with faculty and students, and prepare a detailed assessment report. This contributes the remaining 30% of the evaluation.

Step 5 – Grade assignment: Based on a cumulative grade point average (CGPA), NAAC assigns institutions a letter grade ranging from A++ (highest, CGPA 3.51-4.00) down to C, with D indicating non-accreditation.

Each institution is also required to set up an Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), a permanent body that monitors quality on an ongoing basis and submits Annual Quality Assurance Reports (AQARs) to NAAC. Re-accreditation is required typically every five years.

Why NAAC accreditation matters 🔗

NAAC accreditation carries significant practical consequences for institutions and students alike. It helps students identify quality institutions based on transparent criteria covering infrastructure, faculty, teaching quality, and research output. For institutions, a higher grade improves national reputation, supports student recruitment, and often influences eligibility for additional UGC funding.

Employers also factor NAAC grades into hiring decisions, particularly for campus recruitment. Many competitive examinations and scholarship programmes use accreditation status as an eligibility filter. In short, accreditation is not just a regulatory formality – it shapes institutional behaviour and student outcomes in concrete ways.

Reforms and challenges 🔗

NAAC’s grading system has been scrutinized in recent years. Concerns about subjectivity in peer evaluations, inconsistencies across assessment teams, and in some cases, allegations of misconduct have prompted calls for systemic reform. NAAC has introduced a new framework called Maturity-Based Graded Accreditation (MBGA), which moves toward a binary accreditation model – institutions are either accredited or not – with a separate tiered system recognizing institutions at levels of national and global excellence. This reform aims to reduce the subjectivity that has long been a criticism of the letter-grade system.

How these three bodies work together 🔗

The UGC, SCHEs, and NAAC are not parallel systems operating in isolation – they are structurally interdependent. The UGC provides the legal and financial framework. SCHEs translate that framework into state-level policies and coordinate local institutions. NAAC then independently certifies whether those institutions are meeting the standards both bodies have set.

For instance, UGC recognition is a prerequisite for NAAC accreditation. State councils, in turn, often organize workshops and capacity-building programmes to help affiliated colleges navigate the NAAC process. The UGC’s CARE initiative and its internationalisation guidelines also feed directly into the research and governance criteria that NAAC evaluates. This layered coordination is what gives India’s higher education regulatory architecture its coherence – though strengthening communication across all three levels remains an ongoing challenge.

What do you think? With India’s higher education landscape growing rapidly, do you think the current three-tier regulatory structure – UGC at the national level, SCHEs at the state level, and NAAC for quality certification – is well-equipped to ensure consistent quality across all regions? And should NAAC accreditation be made mandatory for all institutions before they can enrol students, rather than remaining optional for many smaller colleges?

References

1. https://www.ugc.gov.in/
2. http://naac.gov.in/
3. https://www.education.gov.in/en/university-grants-commission
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Grants_Commission_(India)
5. https://testbook.com/ias-preparation/university-grants-commission-ugc
6. https://www.education.gov.in/nep/about-nep
7. https://bhattandjoshiassociates.com/university-grants-commission-ugc-higher-education/
8. https://www.scholarshipsinindia.com/state_councils_of_higher_education_SCHE.html
9. https://tnsche.tn.gov.in/en/
10. https://www.kshec.kerala.gov.in/
11. https://wbsche.wb.gov.in/
12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assessment_and_Accreditation_Council
13. https://gomyschool.com/post/naac-full-form
14. https://gla.ac.in/blog/what-is-naac-what-does-naac-rating-mean/
15. https://en.themooknayak.com/education/naac-grading-transition-will-the-new-accreditation-system-reshape-higher-education-in-india