Will Kejriwal government change higher education policy? High Court gives advice to Delhi government

The Delhi High Court said that state governments and universities should work together to promote higher education and achieve the goal of technical education across the country. The court made this comment while emphasizing the need to change the Delhi Government’s Policy Guidelines, 2016. The High Court, however, dismissed the petition of Vivekanand Institute of Professional Studies (VIPS), Delhi.

VIPS had challenged the non-receipt of NOC from the Delhi government and Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University (IP University) to increase its BTech seats from 60 to 180 for the current academic session. Justice Swarn Kanta Sharma said that there was no basis to accept the demands of the institute. However, the court gave its opinion that in view of the emerging areas and scope in technical education, IP University and the Delhi government should consider these circumstances.

AICTE gave approval, then why did IPU say no?

According to VIPS, it was requesting to increase the seats in the BTech programme from 60 to 180 for the academic session 2024-25. The All India Council for Technical Education also approved it. NOC was not received from the Delhi government, Department of Training and Technical Education and GGSIPU (the university that recognises VIPS). This is necessary for the said programme based on the policy guidelines issued by the Directorate of Higher Education, Delhi in 2016.

The High Court acknowledged that AICTE and universities like GGSIPU should work together to achieve the goal of promoting higher education and developing the technical education system across the country. The court said, the state government may have, in its discretion, laid down a policy to take into account the admission rate of the last two academic years as a benchmark for considering the request for increase in seats. However, these are general guidelines governing every program. In the opinion of the court, these guidelines fail to take into account the changing needs of the society and the new courses that are coming up.

GGSIP University said that the demand for increasing VIPS seats can be considered only if there is a 75 per cent increase in the admission rate of the programme in the last two academic years.