Starting semester and credit-system at the post-graduate level, bringing B and C-grade universities and colleges at A-grade and increasing enrollment of SCs, STs, OBCs and Muslims in colleges and varsities. These will be among the key proposals on the table, when Vice-Chancellors of universities from all over the country meet in the Capital later this week.

The semester system — replacing the annual pattern — and the credit-based curriculum was proposed to the V-Cs all over the country during the regional level consultations held last month.

“The V-Cs were of the view that the Government should tread this path cautiously, and should introduce this system at the post-graduate level first and then expand it further,” UGC chairman Prof Sukhdeo Thorat said on Tuesday.Organised by UGC, the two-day conference on “Development of Higher Education” to be held in Delhi on October 10 and 11, is expected to be attended by over 200 V-Cs, eminent academics and states and Central Government officials.

To improve quality in higher education — after a National Assessment and Accreditation Council’s (NAAC) survey of about 3,000 colleges and more than 120 universities revealed that 90 per cent of colleges and 70 per cent of universities are in medium (B-grade) to poor quality (C-grade) — the UGC will also look at adopting strategies for bridging the “quality gap”. Prof Thorat said, “We want to bring universities and colleges, which at present don’t get UGC grant, under the fold of development grants.” By pumping in money into these “sub-standard” colleges, the Government expects to upgrade faculty and infrastructure.

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