Under GATS, higher education policies are to be framed by which of the…

Concept: The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a WTO treaty that treats many economic activities — including education — as tradeable "services". Under India's Allocation of Business Rules, a ministry's domestic, sector-specific role (running institutions, setting curriculum) is separate from India's trade-policy role of negotiating and framing commitments under a WTO agreement for that sector; the trade-negotiation role for every GATS-scheduled sector rests with the department that handles India's foreign trade policy and multilateral commercial relations, regardless of which ministry regulates that sector domestically.

Application: Higher education is one of the service sectors covered under GATS. Framing India's policy stance and commitments on higher education as a traded service is therefore the responsibility of the Commerce and Trade department — the nodal authority for WTO/GATS-related sectoral negotiations — and not of the ministry that runs the education system day to day.

Contrast the other departments:

• Education administers curriculum, degrees and domestic regulation of institutions — everyday sector oversight, not negotiation of WTO trade commitments.

• External Affairs conducts India's general diplomatic and bilateral relations — a broad remit distinct from the specialised technical negotiation of WTO service-sector schedules.

• Urban Planning deals with city development, housing and land use, and has no connection to international service-sector agreements.

So, under GATS, higher-education policy is framed by the Commerce and Trade department.