Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], February 20 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday inaugurated the National Convention on the Draft University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations of 2025 to deliberate on the implications of the proposed provisions.
He said that these regulations threaten the autonomy of universities and aim to centralise higher education.
"These regulations threaten the autonomy of universities and aim to centralise higher education, undermining federal values. Academic freedom must be protected," CM Vijayan wrote in a post on X.
The Draft UGC Regulations were released by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on January 6, 2025. State governments have since raised objections, calling them "an attack on the idea of federalism."
Kerala Higher Education Minister R Bindu, elected representatives from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, and leaders of various political organisations participated in the conference.
During the discussion, the leaders raised objections to the draft UGC regulations, which "curtail the federal structure of the country by diminishing the role of the state and increasing central authority in matters related to state universities."
The demands raised by the concerned ministers entail that the state governments' role remains intact in determining the administrative aspects of the universities.
"The state governments must be given a greater role in appointing Vice Chancellors. Never in the history of the state universities has the UGC completely taken over the right to constitute the search-cum-selection committee to appoint VCs. The higher education regulator must desist from such authoritarian measures," the convention declared.
The leaders also demanded that the proposal to appoint VCs without academic credentials be withdrawn.
"The UGC must desist from all attempts to curtail the universities' academic autonomy by insisting on academic content as mandatory criteria for compliance. This can only be viewed as a violation of the legislative mandate that the UGC act confers upon it," the demand charter read.
Urging the UGC to "honour the rights of the state governments", the leaders pressed that the directions to impose New Education Policy (NEP) and threatening action against violators was "dictatorial".
"Indiscriminately imposing all the proposals in the NEP as mandatory and threatening punitive action against violators is dictatorial and detrimental to the spirit of federalism. UGC must honour the states' right to legislate by putting restraints on its own unbridled authority," the convention said.