What is Viksit Bharat Shiksha Bill?

India has, for centuries, been a land of holistic learning and knowledge for learners across the globe. The Indian education system has acted to establish and sustain a civilisational foundation and as a strategic tool for national development. We have come so far from the ancient centres of Takshashila and Nalanda to the post-independence expansion of mass education to the newest bill known as the Vikshit Bharat Adhishikshan Bill, which has just been introduced in Lok Sabha on December 15, 2025. The newest framework is envisioned to act as a catalyst for offering a future-ready, interdisciplinary, skill-oriented education that aligns with the modern-day demands of industries and the nation’s demographic dividend.

There was much need for recalibration of the learning system in India and to expand outcome-focused policies so that learning, research, employability, and global relevance could meet on the same platform. The Vikshit Bharat Bill aims to function as a central pillar to achieve technological self-reliance, inclusive learning growth, and global-level development.

What is the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Bill?

Introduced in Lok Sabha on December 15, 2025, the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Bill aims to establish a single regulatory body for higher education, replacing three educational statutory bodies:

• UGC (University Grants Commission)
• AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education)
• NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education)

The bill repeals the three acts substantial to the establishment of these bodies. In their place, the apex regulatory body for higher education shall be Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan, which shall have three different councils under it and would play the roles of the aforementioned educational bodies, but within a unified framework. Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan shall have the following three councils:

• Regulatory Council

Act as a common regulator for higher education

• Accreditation Council

Look after the system of accreditation 

• Standards Council

Determine and uphold the highest academic standard

Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan: Higher Education under One Umbrella

The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, has been introduced to enable and empower universities and other higher education institutions to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, research, and innovation. This is to be done through coordination and determination of the highest academic standards in institutions for higher education or research and scientific and technical institutions. Apart from this, the bill also aims to make universities and other higher education institutions independent, self-governing institutions. The Bill also plans to establish excellence through a transparent and robust system of autonomy and accreditation in India.

Role and Functions of Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan

As we already know, Vikshit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan shall replace the old education statutory bodies with three new councils. The main motive behind establishing this commission is to improve the quality of education at higher education levels. The leading roles and functions of the commission are:

1. Offer strategic direction for higher education and research
2. Devise a roadmap to transform HEIs or educational institutions into extensive multidisciplinary education and research institutions
3. Recommend schemes to improve the quality of higher education
4. Provide directions to ensure coordination between the councils, if necessary
5. Offer financial support for the proper functioning of the three councils
6. Lay down the broad framework for educational programmes offered across traditional, ODL (Online and distance learning) and online learning, providing autonomy to the institutes to innovate on matters of pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment
7. Laid down the minimum standards required to set up and operate a higher education institute
8. Provide norms for credit, transfers, equivalence, and other related matters to facilitate easy mobility of the students
9. Expected LO, or learning outcomes, for the highest education programs being offered across HEIs
10. Issue guiding principles for the graduate attributes for learning outcomes for easy integration of vocational education with higher education
11. Promote the highest quality of academic instruction and determine the minimum academic standard to be followed in HEI

Who all does the Act apply to?

The Act applies to all institutions of national importance established by an Act of Parliament under the administrative control of the Ministry of Education in the Government of India, or any other institution as notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette.

The act is also equally applicable to universities in India established under a Central or State Act, or to any other institution declared as deemed to be a university by any notification issued by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Government of India, under the provisions of Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, before the Act came into force.

However, the provisions of this act shall not be applicable to professional programmes of institutions that are regulated by:

• Pharmacy Council of India, constituted under the Pharmacy Council Act, 1948
• Bar Council of India, constituted under the Advocates Act, 1961
• Veterinary Council of India, established under the Indian Veterinary Council Act, 1984
• The Council of Architecture (CoA), established under the Architects Act, 1972
• Medicine and dentistry to be regulated by the National Medical Commission (NMC), established under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, and the National Dental Commission (NDC), established under the National Dental Commission Act, 2023
• National Nursing and Midwifery Commission (NMMC), established under the National Nursing and Midwifery Commission Act, 2023.

Council and Composition of the New Commission

The commission shall be headed by a chairperson and shall have 12 members. The chairperson shall be an eminent personality with a reputation, appointed in the highest honorary capacity. As for the remaining 12 members of the commission, they shall include.

• President of the three councils
• Higher Education Secretary of the Central Government
• Five eminent experts
• Two eminent accommodations from the state HEIs

A president shall head each council and would have 14 full-time members.  An eminent personality in the field of higher education or research with at least 10 years of experience equivalent to a professor shall be eligible to be appointed for the post of the president of the Council. As for the members of the council, eminent experts and one nominee of the union department of higher education and nominees by the other two councils shall constitute the commission councils.

Appointment and Tenure

The President of India shall appoint the President of the commission and the full-time members of the commission upon recommendation of a selection committee. The committee shall consist of two eminent experts and the central government's higher education secretary. The committee shall be headed by one of the eminent experts on the committee panel.

• The Chairperson of the committee, the President of the councils, and the members are to be appointed for an initial duration of 3 years, which is extendable up to 5 years.
• All the members, including the chairperson and the president, can be re-elected for another term.
• Except for the chairperson of the commission, the maximum age limit for serving officers shall be up to 70 years.
• The nominees of state governments to the Regulatory and Standard Councils shall be appointed for a period of one year. 
• The central government shall prescribe the salary structure and other allowances, along with additional terms and conditions of service for each member and the head of the council and the chairperson of the committee.

The Need for Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan?

The need for a new educational policy reform arose because of modern-day learning challenges and to have a unified system of learning that could deal with the demographic, economic and structural difficulties that learners face, which the existing policies and educational bodies were no longer equipped to deal with accurately.

• AICTE was established in 1945, UGC in 1953 and NCTE in 1993. All these educational statutory bodies were set up decades ago. Our current educational system is highly different, with more skill-oriented and practical elements to be incorporated for employability relevance.
• The bill aims to bridge the gap between the education being provided in higher educational institutes and skill development, along with research and technology, to have a unified national learning region that aligns with the long-term growth of learners.
• The earlier educational reforms were to make education more accessible to learners. However, today, the technology has made access easier, and therefore, it is more important that we make learning more outcome-based, improving the learning quality and the research output, due to which the bill aims to focus more on expansion and inclusion, along with outcome-driven learning and measurable economic and sociological impact.
• The present educational system of India has a significant gap between industry-relevant skills and formal education; therefore, to eliminate the mismatch between employability demands and education, the new bill tries to blend vocational education with formal education.
• We are familiar with the global competitiveness pressures. The rise in the digital economy and rapid technological shifts meant there was a demographic urgency to make the youth more skill-orientated, along with having a formal education.

• Strict Adherence to Rules for HEIs

Apart from acting as a regulator of academic affairs and overseeing the system of accreditation through its council, the commission may also impose penalties on higher education institutions if they do not comply with the rules and regulations of the act.  Upon failure to meet the prescribed higher education standards, a higher education institute may be required to pay a penalty between INR 10 Lakhs and INR 70 Lakhs. The regulatory council may also recommend to the Central or the State Government, whichever is applicable, regarding a higher education institute that fails to uphold academic standards, to:

• Remove the responsible person from employment, with immediate effect
• Review and revise the level of autonomy of the HEI
• Withhold the grant status to be given to NHEI
• Modify the right to confer degrees

In extreme cases, where an HEI has absolutely failed to follow the rules laid down by the commission and has failed the education system, the affiliation of the higher education institute under scrutiny may be revoked, or it may even be directed to be closed by Vikshit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan. 

In case of any discrepancy or disagreement with the decisions of the Vikshit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan, appeals can be made against the decisions of the commission and the councils, which shall lie before the central government for resolution and management.

What Can We Expect: Would the Vikshit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill Be Beneficial?

In terms of all the changes that the bill has proposed to make the Indian education system more skill-oriented, technology-driven and more inclusive, the bill is expected to bear positive outcomes. However, the end result largely depends on how effective the implementation of the bill is. If the Vikshit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan bill is implemented to its best measures, we can expect that:

1. The new education offered across all higher education institutes in India shall be aligned with the development goals, integrating education with research and innovation for learning-based outcomes that directly contribute to the economic growth of the country.
2. We can also expect that by offering courses that shall equip learners with industry-relevant knowledge and skills, there shall be an increase in the learner’s employability factor, as they shall have more technology-driven learning, skill-enhancing courses and be a part of an interdisciplinary educational approach.
3. We can also expect the bill to provide a boost to innovation and research, open gates to more entrepreneurship opportunities, and promote an indigenous knowledge system, which can help strengthen India’s stance in international knowledge contribution. 

At last, if the bill does fulfil what it promises to do with the kind of vision it carries for the Indian education system, we hope to be part of a modern-day learning system which is rooted in providing more accessibility and equity to students, along with being inclusive, future-ready and focused on skill building. The bill envisions turning the present-day learner into future-ready human capital in any industry they work in by equipping them with industry-relevant skills and knowledge.