2 min readNew DelhiMar 13, 2026 02:25 AM IST
The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) is learnt to have told a joint committee of Parliament that the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL) should have a presence in the higher education commission that will be set up under the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) Bill.
The NCTE is learnt to have suggested that the DoSEL’s role be defined in VBSA, since the Department is a major stakeholder in teacher education. A 31-member joint panel of Parliament, which is considering the Bill, met representatives of the NCTE, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the Council of Architecture Thursday.
The Bill, introduced in the winter session of Parliament and then referred to the committee, effectively seeks to merge the UGC, NCTE, and AICTE, and set up an umbrella body with three councils that will perform regulatory, standard-setting, and accreditation functions for higher education. The Bill is in line with the NEP 2020, which recommends a single higher education regulator.
The NCTE is learnt to have told the joint committee that the DoSEL should have a presence in the VBSA (the higher education commission), to ensure quality of teacher education institutions. It has said that this will strengthen the coherence between teacher preparation and enhancing learning outcomes of students, which is the mandate of the DoSEL. The joint committee, with D Purandeswari as the chairperson, is likely to present its report on the Bill in the last week of the monsoon session of Parliament.
Introduced in winter session, Opposition MPs had objected to the Bill saying that it could lead to “excessive centralisation”.
