Once the two are merged, new bodies called the Higher Education Grants Council and Professional Standard Setting Bodies will be set up

Sources told Moneycontrol that while there will be one single regulator National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA) for the higher education sector, there will be bodies under it to look into quality maintenance of institutions.

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At present, UGC helps to maintain standards in university education across the country. On the other hand, AICTE serves as an accreditation body for engineering, management, hospitality and other technical institutes across the country.

No inspections are conducted by regulators, due to which there are quality concerns at several higher education institutions. The human resource development ministry is keen to address these concerns, because they want to attract more international students to the country.

Once UGC and AICTE are merged, the new quality maintaining body is likely to identify regions, courses and institutes that need to be looked at on a regular basis. There would be incentives for maintaining the standards while there could be disincentives for poor quality institutes.

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