BHUBANESWAR: A NAAC grade from University Grants Commission (UGC) will now be necessary for any state-run college or university to apply for government funds to organise seminars, conferences and workshops.
The State Higher Education Council under the Higher Education department has revised its guidelines to fund such activities in public colleges and universities. As per the new norms, only those institutes that have higher grades will be eligible to receive government funds for the purpose.
The guidelines mandate that universities and colleges with NAAC grade A and above or under the UGC’s new binary accreditation system, the colleges that are accredited with maturity-based grade level 2, can apply for hosting international events like workshops, seminars and conferences. The institutions with an institutional development plan will be given priority.
Sources said under the maturity-based graded accreditation there are levels 1 to 5. From level 1 to level 4, institutions are marked as national excellence, and for level 5, institutions are given the tag of global excellence for multi-disciplinary research and education based on different parameters.
Officials said an event will be considered a national one only if a quarter of the registered participants are from institutions outside the state. A conference or symposium or any such event can be considered international only if it has a minimum five international participants/delegates from other countries. Further, these participants must not be from the same country.
Sources said earlier any college would invite one international delegate and name the event an international conference or workshop and take funds accordingly, but the new rules are aimed at regulating this practice.
The council has said that an international event may be organised once in two years in colleges and twice annually in the case of university. It will act as the agency to examine the proposals for such events by the institutions and recommend the quantum of assistance to a college or university.