new delhi higher education sector is set for a makeover as the modi government plans to implement a slew of measures such as qualifying exam for phds to be of the standard of net exam mandatory use of credible antiplagiarism software for evaluating phds assessment and accreditation of higher education institutions by third party agencies and granting full autonomy academic financial and administrative to topranked institutionsthe measures are part of higher education reforms package which was finalised by a highpowered panel including then niti aayog vicechairman arvind panagariya ceo amitabh kant and k k sharma secretary higher education hrd ministrythe panel which submitted its report on august 31 was asked by prime minister narendra modi to prepare a blueprint for higher education reformlearning from past experiences the committee has decided to set in motion shortterm measures which can be implemented through regulations by ugc and aicte within a timeframe while leaving it to hrd ministry to come out with a roadmap for big bang reforms including setting up of higher education regulator which requires legislative amendmentsacademic collaborations will be permitted only with foreign institutions that are ranked among the top 500 of world institutionsthe panel felt that existing legislative framework was not conducive for setting up foreign educational campuses in india while emphasising the need to examine the critical roadblocks and feasibility of required legislative modifications in futurethe plan is also to introduce a threetier autonomy in which top ranking institutions will get full academic administrative and financial autonomythese institutions will be free if no government funding is required to open constituent colleges offer online programs without geographical restrictions open research park or incubation centres academic collaborations with foreign higher educational institutions as per ugc regulations admit foreign students up to 20 of domestic students while having freedom to fix feeswhile following ugc pay scales these institutions may build in meritbased incentive structure from its own resources to attract talented facultythe institutions ranked poor would remain under government controlthe panel also suggested reform of existing accreditation framework by allowing third party agencies for assessment and accreditation of institutions it also suggests to make it mandatory for institutions and programmes to prominently display accreditation grade or unaccredited status on every information materialit has also made mandatory accreditation for online and distance learning programsthe committee has also suggested a check on quality of existing list of over 30000 journals notified by ugc to evaluate performance of facultythe review of journals must be done by subjectwise committees comprising eminent academiciansan official said reforms in higher education sector had been under discussion but past governments failed to implement this is the reason the panel has suggested reforms which are implementable within a timeframedespite having worlds largest higher education system no indian institution is in top 200 times he ranking 2018 he added