For Students By Teachers: Dharmendra Pradhan

Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan rolls out the seventh edition of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). Here are few highlights of the announcement.

“NIRF takes care of regional, women, socio-economic diversity and other disadvantaged sections of society.” Adding that India is a youth-nation, therefore, we have a responsibility to take care of the youth and provide them with the right facilities and opportunities in higher education," stated Dr Anil Kumar Nassa, Secretary, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) complementing NIRF ability to focus on India-centric parameters.

“We will be focussing extensively on how quality and procedure in each institution will be refined developed so that they may reach the top ranks in the near future," said K Sanjay Murthy, Secretary, Ministry of Education reflecting over the last year. Murthy also expressed their efforts to simplify the process for institutes to reduce the burden of providing extensive data. Plans to build a ‘One Data, One Platform’ system with support from AICTE was shared.

Ranking

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras retains its position as the top overall and engineering institute.“I dedicate this achievement to all the students, staff and faculty of my Institute. Special thanks to all the frontline workers who kept the Institute ticking during the Covid times. Thanks to the Ministry of Education, Government of India for their continued support and encouragement. NIRF process gives a detailed feedback regarding our strengths and weaknesses. While we will continue to leverage on our strengths we will address the weaknesses to march forward,” commented Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras congratulating students and staff.

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru tops the university and research categories, while Miranda House is named best college. Full rankings can be accessed on the NIRF website.

Categories

Since 2015, NIRF has gradually added new categories in its ranking. ‘Research Institution’ was introduced last year bringing the total number of categories to 11. The other categories include: Overall, University, College, Management Institute, Engineering, Medical, Pharmacy, Architecture, Law and ARIIA (Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements). Pradhan announced that an ‘Innovation & Entrepreneurship’ vertical will be added in the coming year for ARIIA to avoid duplicity. Dr Nassa elaborated that further categories may be added as they continue to receive requests from various institutions to rank their respective streams.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi continues to be the top medical institute. Indian Institution of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad retains position as a top manangement institute. Jamia Hamdard is the best institute for pharmacy, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences for dental, National Law School of India University for law and IIT Roorkee for architecture.

Parameters

There are six overall parameters that determine the ranking of higher education institutes, with 16 sub-categories. The parameters include Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR), Research & Professional practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach & Inclusivity (OI) and Peer Perception. The methodology and framework used for the rankings have not seen much change since the previous year.

Future of Rankings

Minister of Education stresses that “every institution has to go through the accreditation process.” This year a total of 7254 institutes participated in the rankings, a significant increase from the previous year which saw 6,272 institutes. Pradhan stated that all higher education institutes in India would have to belong to both accreditation and the ranking framework of the country. He states, “Institutions, students, teachers are the stakeholders and parameters on whom the assessment, accreditation and ranking will be based.” Further, all education institutes will be ranked, including CBSE and NCERT schools. All schools will also need to go through the accreditation process, currently done by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and NBA.

Vasudha Mukherjee

BW Reporters The author works with BW Education