The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)’s ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) has received considerable criticism.
What is NIRF ranking?
The NIRF was approved by the MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) and launched in 2015.
The framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country.
The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five parameters:
Teaching, Learning & Resources
Research & Professional Practice (RP)
Graduation Outcomes
Outreach & Inclusivity (OI)
Perception (PR)
2022 Ranking
IIT-Madras topped the overall category for the fourth consecutive year, and in engineering for the seventh straight year.
The top-ranked private institutions are Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (16), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (17), Vellore Institute of Technology (18).
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) stood first in the research institutions category.
AIIMs occupied the top slot in the medical education category for the fifth straight year.
IIM-Ahmedabad remained the best institute in the management segment.
The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, retained the first position in law.
What were the criticisms against the ranking?
Data fudging- The NIRF ranking shows that a private law university scored 100% in perception.
But the Common Law Admission Test admission choice shows that this institution figures below 10 NLUs as a preferred place to study.
Lack of rigorous verification- There seems to be a lack of a rigorous system of verification by the NIRF of the data submitted by HEIs.
Regarding the faculty-student ratio (FSR), some private multi-discipline universities have claimed the same faculty in more than one discipline.
Funds- Enormous funds have been claimed as expenditure on equipment for laboratories by some private multi-discipline institutions which offer law as a subject.
But labs are not required for law.
No transparency- The NIRF requires the data submitted to it be published by all the participating HEIs on their website so that such data can be scrutinised.
Some private multi-discipline universities have not granted free access to such data on their website.
There is also discrepancy in the data submitted to the NIRF and the data on the websites of these institutions.
Methodology- The NIRF applies almost the same parameters to all the institutions across varied disciplines in research and professional practice.
There is a gap between the methodology employed for accreditation purposes and for ranking purposes.
While the National Assessment and Accreditation Council gives due weightage to publications in UGC-Care listed journals, the NIRF uses publication data only from Scopus and Web of Science.
