Former Director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati Professor TG Sitharam assumed the charge as the Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) yesterday, December 21, 2022. He took over from University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman Jagadesh Kumar who was holding interim charge of the AICTE Chairman from September 2022.

While assuming his charge as the AICTE Chairman, Prof Sitharam said, “I will work with every stakeholder in education domain to transform Higher education into large, well resourced, vibrant multidisciplinary providing high quality teaching, innovation, entrepreneurship, research, and community engagement hubs,” according to a statement released by IIT Guwahati.

Prof Sitharam aims to make India a global educational knowledge hub with an increase in the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education to 50 per cent by 2035 through interventions of AICTE, IIT Guwahati statement added.

Speaking about building entrepreneurial ecosystems and creating job opportunities for India’s young population, he said, “With more advanced research at all institutions, AICTE can create many Innovations and new start-ups as an excellent job creator.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is approving a Bill that intends to merge AICTE and UGC into a super regulator called the Higher Education Commission of India, according to a report by The Indian Express. The single higher education regulator plan has moved back and forth several times but has finally been approved in the new National Education Policy (NEP). Plans had been in place to introduce a single higher education regulator in the country to replace other bodies such as the UGC, AICTE and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). Former HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had confirmed last year that discussions had been ongoing in this regard.