The All India Democratic Students’ Organization (AIDSO) has strongly opposed the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, recently approved by the Union Cabinet and renamed the Viksit Bharat Education Supervision Bill, claiming that it seeks to centralize control over higher education and undermine the autonomy of educational institutions.
In a press statement issued on Friday, Ballari AIDSO district secretary Kambali Manjunath said the proposed legislation would dissolve existing statutory bodies such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) and merge them into a single regulatory body operating directly under the central government.
The bill, according to the statement, envisages a structure in which most of the members of the proposed HECI would be appointed by the Union government, giving it extensive powers in academic regulation, accreditation and professional standards, while financial matters would be handled by a separate administrative ministry.
According to AIDSO, this would undermine institutional autonomy and threaten the democratic functioning of universities. The student body also criticized what it described as permanent cuts to education budgets, ideological interference in the curriculum and an attack on secular, scientific and democratic values in the education system. It argued that the government was backing away from its responsibility to ensure equitable, accessible and affordable education while seeking greater administrative control over academic institutions.
Citing that the HECI bill faced widespread opposition from students, teachers and other stakeholders when it was first introduced in 2018, AIDSO said the reintroduction of the bill has again drawn strong opposition from student organizations, teachers’ unions and educators across the country.
The statement also linked the bill to the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which AIDSO described as promoting centralisation, communalisation, commercialization and privatization of education. Since the introduction of the NEP, the organization claimed to be building sustained movements against what it called anti-student and anti-education policies.
Describing the current situation as critical, AIDSO called on students, teachers and education activists to unite against what it described as authoritarian and “fascist” tendencies in education administration, and called on democratic, progressive and left-leaning student organizations to unite in defense of a secular, scientific and universal education system.
Published – 19 Dec 2025 19:42 IST
