National Institutional Ranking Framework, 2018

Why in news?

Ministry of Human Resource Development recently released the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2018.

What is NIRF?

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was approved by the MHRD and launched in 2015.
The framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country.
The parameters broadly cover -

There were a total of 9 categories this year under which India’s higher education institutions were judged.
The 2018 exercise newly added the disciplines of law, medicine and architecture.

What are the latest rankings?

The ranking of most colleges and universities have remained almost the same this year.
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, is again ranked first in both overall and university categories.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are the best among engineering institutes.
The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are the best among management institutes.
This is for the third time in row on the NIRF ranking that IITs and IIMs are leading.
IIT-Madras was adjudged the best engineering institute.
IIM-Ahmedabad was adjudged the best management institute.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences was adjudged the top medical college.
There were some institutes, which could not be placed in any of the 9 categories.
These have been placed in special category because of the quality of research work.
Some of them include the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, etc.

What are the concerns?

Participation - India has around 860 universities, 40,000 colleges and 11,600 standalone institutions of higher education.
Of these, only around 4,500 institutes took part in the India Rankings 2018.
Even among the institutions that participated, there is a clear skew towards southern, south-eastern and western India.
The government is planning to cut some sort of funding to those which do not participate in the rankings.
Parity - Older institutions with historical advantages now enjoy a higher ranking.
This obscures newer entrants who may have stronger claims to excellence.
Approach - The ranking approach worldwide is critiqued for failing to capture the crucial metric of learning outcomes.
The rankings instead rely on proxy data on faculty strength and qualifications.

What is the way forward?

Funding - The governing bodies should make available adequate financial and academic resources to colleges.
This is particularly essential for the developing colleges, to help them improve performance.
Participation - Ranking educational and research institutes has some significant practical uses.
It helps students make study choices, sponsors to identify research projects, and other universities to form partnerships.
Thus, for a reliable and relevant process, all recognised educational institutions should be enrolled, and not just the public ones.
Objective - Beyond competitive ranking, the higher order goal is to foster learning and scholarship.
Encouraging faculty to exercise complete academic freedom is essential to achieve this.
The NIRF ranking thus needs a fine tuning to incorporate these aspects.

Source: Business Standard, The Hindu