Varsity to launch new departments and courses without needing UGC nod
BY OUR STAFF REPORTER
Guwahati, July 23: The Gauhati University (GU) may soon be able to launch new departments, courses, schools and centres without the approval of the University Grants Commission (UGC), albeit in self-fincing mode.
Sources told The Sentinel that the country’s higher education regulatory body recently approved a new set of regulations, termed as the UGC (Categorisation of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy) Regulations-2017.
Under the new regulations, universities across the country have been classified into three categories based on their tiol Assessment and Accreditation Council (AC) accreditation and tiol Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. The first two categories will be accorded greater autonomy by the UGC.
Sources said Gauhati University, the oldest university in the Northeast is eligible to be included in Category I since the varsity has AC accreditation with a score of 3.5 or above and figured in the NIRF’s list of top 50 institutions.
The UGC has sought public feedback for these new rules and guidelines and a fil guideline will be issued soon.
“Once a university is included in Category I, it will be able to open research parks, incubation centres and university society linkage centres in self-fincing mode either on its own, or in partnership with private entities, without the UGC’s approval,” the sources said while quoting the new UGC regulations.
A senior faculty at GU said there is an urgent need for the varsity to launch new departments, courses, schools and centres. He, however, said the present inspection regime by the UGC often comes in the way of launching new departments and programmes.
“Things will be much easier when the UGC will free universities like the GU from taking permission to launch new departments. However, the GU will have to do it with its own resources because the UGC will no longer fund the new departments and programmes,” he pointed out.
Sources said the UGC has also proposed new rules for private deemed-to-be universities, allowing them to open as many off-campus centres as they want across the country.
In other proposals for Central universities like Tezpur University, the UGC has allowed them to hire intertiol talent up to 20% of total faculty strength and fill up to 20% of student seats with aspirants from other countries.