The University Grants Commission has decided to invite designs for convocation attire that accords with Indian culture and tradition, from professional designers as well as students.

An expert committee will examine the designs the UGC receives and some of these will be shortlisted. The shortlisted designs will be made available to higher educational institutions to be suitably adopted for their convocations.

Suggesting just a few designs might open a Pandora’s Box, said C Pichandy, former general secretary of the Association of University Teachers.

“The students should be allowed to wear the traditional dress of their respective regions. Or, the states concerned should be allowed to decide what the convocation attire should be. There is no meaning in wearing a convocation dress which is not part of one’s tradition,” he added.

In July 2015, UGC had asked universities to consider using handloom fabric for ceremonial dresses being prescribed for special occasions like convocations. Following that, many institutions of higher education, including IITs of Kanpur and Bombay introduced traditional attire for convocation ceremonies.

Even before that, at the first IIT-BHU convocation in July 2013, men students wore white dhoti-kurta or pyjama-kurta and women students wore white sari or salwar-kurta, doing away with the colonial black gown and hat.