Arun C Mehta
National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)
The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was initiated
by the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development (now Ministry of Education) in 2016 which
categorized institutions under universities, institutions, engineering, and
pharmacy. Initially, because of the poor quality of the data, no ranking was
announced in the case of the B category institutions. However, later the
quality of data improved and new categories of institutions were added.
In this brief note ranking of the first
ten universities and institutions right from 2016 to the latest 2022 is glanced
at. In the latest 2022 ranking, Teaching Learning and Resources (weight-age 0.30), Research
and Professional Practices (weight-age 0.30), Graduation Outcomes (weight-age
0.20), Outreach and Inclusivity (weight-age 0.10), and Perception (weight-age
0.10), are the parameters which have been used broadly in ranking institutions.
Each of these parameters is further sub-categorized through which the
institutions are ranked. National
Board of Accreditation (NBA) is continued to be the
Ranking Agency on behalf of NIRF for 2022.
The latest NIFR released on 15th July by
the Minister of Education has categorized different institutions falling under Overall,
Universities, Colleges, Research Institutes, Engineering, Medical, Management,
Pharmacy, Dental, Law, and Architecture institutions.
The NIFR Dataset
In the 2022 ranking,
all candidate institutions, independent of their discipline or nature have been
included in the given overall ranking provided that they have a total strength
of 1,000 students in undergraduate and/or postgraduate programs. As many as
18,875 universities, colleges, institutions, etc. have participated in NIFR
2022 Rankings. It may be recalled that as per the AISHE,
there were about 1,043 universities, 42,342 colleges, and 11,779 stand-alone institutions
in the Country data from which were collected during the year 2019-20; thus
indicating that a good number of such institutions are still out of the reach
of NIFR in 2022.
The NIFR 2022 has
specified the process through which the institutions had to provide the data.
Institutions that were desirous of participating in the ranking process were
required to submit the data in the format which is specifically designed by the
NIRF. The NIRF 2022 made it mandatory for participating institutions to upload their
data on their website so that it is publically visible to anyone.
The finalized data
submitted after the comments and observations received from the NIRF must be
made available on its website and must be remained there for at least three
years all of which would help in improving the transparency and overall quality
of data. Had there been a need, the accreditation team had to physically visit
the institution concerned and scrutinize the records. The interested
institutions needed to register themselves on the NIFR portal.
NIRF:
2017 to 2022, OVERALL Rankings
|
Name |
Score |
2022 |
2021 |
2020 |
2019 |
2018 |
2017 |
|
|
Rank |
||||||||
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Madras, Chennai, (Tamil Nadu) |
87.59 |
1 |
1 (86.76) |
1 (85.31) |
1 (83.88) |
2 (81.39) |
2 (73.97) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Science Bengaluru, (Karnataka) |
83.57 |
2 |
2 (82.67) |
2 (84.18) |
2 (82.28) |
1 (82.16) |
1 (82.28) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Bombay, Mumbai (Maharashtra) |
82.35 |
3 |
3 (82.52) |
4 (80.75) |
4 (78.62) |
3 (79.20) |
3 (71.78) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Delhi, New Delhi(Delhi) |
82.22 |
4 |
4 (81.75) |
3 (81.33) |
3 (78.69) |
4 (73.97) |
5 (64.18) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur, Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) |
77.83 |
5 |
5 (76.50) |
6 (74.99) |
6 (79.07) |
7 (65.39) |
7 (60.69) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur (West Bengal) |
75.94 |
6 |
6 (75.62) |
5 (75.85) |
5 (74.31) |
5 (71.39) |
4 (68.43) |
|
|
Indian Institute of
Technology Roorkee, Roorkee
(Uttarakhand) |
71.48 |
7 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 (71.40) |
8 (68.48) |
8 (67.68) |
8 (64.93) |
9 (59.84) |
||||
|
IIT Guwahati, Guwahati
(Assam) |
69.75 |
8 |
8 (69.26) |
9 (68.81) |
9 (65.47) |
12 (60.16) |
|
|
|
All India Institute
of Medical Sciences, Delhi (Delhi) |
69.57 |
9 |
Maybe AIIMS is
included for the first time in NIRF 2022 |
|||||
|
Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi (Delhi) |
67.25 |
10 |
9 (66.61) |
8 (68.76) |
7 (68.68) |
6 (67.57) |
6 (61.53) |
|
|
BHU Varanasi (Uttar
Pradesh) |
64.81 |
11 |
10 (63.10) |
10 (62.03) |
10 (64.55) |
9 (63.52) |
10 (58.92) |
|
|
Anna University
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) |
|
|
|
|
|
10 (62.82) |
|
|
Note:
Overall ranks were not awarded in 2016, Source: NIRF, different years. Readers
are requested to refer source of information and provide a full reference to
the contents used.
NIRF Overall Ranking: 2017 to 2022, First 10
Institutions
In this brief note, we take a review of the first ten
ranked institutions that found a place in NIRF 2022 which includes all types of
institutions including universities, colleges, institutions, and other types of
institutions mentioned above. The objective is to see how these first 10 ranked
institutions performed in the past years starting the first year of NIRF i.e.
2016; unfortunately, NIFR 2016 does not present an overall rank but has ranked
for each of the four categories considered in ranking in that year. Because of
this, the past performance of the first 10 institutions is viewed between the
years 2022 to 2017.
The analysis is summarised in the form of a Table
which indicates that by and large, the first 10 ranked institutions that found
a place in the overall ranking in 2022 have also had high ranks since the
beginning of NIRF 2017. However, there are a few exceptions that indicate
improvement in the case of a few institutions and a slight decline in the case
of a few others.
Further, it has been observed that the highest first
ranked institution though it is on the top of the list but still not perfect as
their overall scores are far below 100, an institution can attain as per the
NIFR framework but not a single institution is near in achieving the same.
Further, it has also been observed a wide gap in scores of the first and the
tenth institutions in 2022 in the overall rank. Further, it has been observed
that the gap in scores of the first ranked and the second rank institutions in
2022 is wide and significant and it would be rather difficult to bridge the gap
in the coming years.
It is also
important to discuss whether NIFR ranking is required to be computed every year
or once in five years? How much change/improvement does occur in an institution
in a year? Do they change swiftly
between the two years? The gap between the top and the bottom and middle-ranked
institutions is so wide and significant that the bottom-ranked institutions will
take longer or may not even be able to bridge the gap. On the other hand, it is
rather difficult also for the top-ranked institutions to further improve their
overall scores which are visible in their 2022 scores. It has also been
observed that compared to the initial scores in 2017, scores look very
impressive in 2022 but the last three years' scores of these institutions
suggest that even the top-ranked institutions reached a saturation point and it
would be difficult for them to further improve.
The initial wide gap in scores may also be attributed
to the fact that institutions were not equipped to have all the requisite
information to submit to the NIFR
portal. But with each passing year and also because of the gradual
improvement in the higher education database through the AISHE, the same has
improved significantly and institutions now are better equipped to submit the
information required for NIRF ranking.
NIRF in India was initiated 3 years after such an
exercise was undertaken globally to rank the global World in universities in
the year 2013. Like the NIRF ranking, the World University Ranking is also
available for the year. As many as 13
performance indicators spread over areas of the international outlook,
research, knowledge transfer and teaching have been used in the global international
ranking in 2022. As many as 2,100 institutions (mostly universities, around
1,600) from all over the World from about 99 countries participated in the
World University Ranking in 2022 all of which have not been assigned ranks
because of the deficiencies in the database which they submitted. Both the
University of Oxford in the area of teaching and Harvard University in the area
of research continued to be the best universities in the World.
So far as the
participation of India in the World ranking is concerned as many as 89
institutions participated in 2022 but all of them have not been assigned the
ranking and they are termed as Reporters; the number of such institutions is
around 18 which includes Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research, Management Development Institute,
Mizoram
University, University
of Kerala, etc.
The outcome of the NIFR
ranking is also reflected in the World ranking; the Indian Institute of Science
located in Banglore is the highest ranked institution from India and is placed
in the rank bracket of 301 to 350; this means that IIS is amongst the
top best 350 institutions of the World.
Next to IIS, there are
a few institutions that are otherwise not ranked in the first 10 ranked
institutions in NIFR 2022 but has found a place in the rank bracket of 351 to
400 which includes the newly established IIT Ropar and IIT Indore which are
followed by institutions like Thapar
Institute of Engineering & Technology and Alagappa University,
the only two institutions from India to find a place in the rank bracket of 501
to 600.
Two of the top-ranked
universities in the NIFR 2022, namely the Jamia
Milia Islamia, Delhi
University, and Jawaharlal
Nehru University, Delhi could find a place only in the
rank bracket of 601 to 800. On the other hand, the Aligarh Muslim
University is ranked between 801 to 1000 bracket so the newly
entered KIIT
is in this bracket. Surprisingly none of the top-ranked IITs such as IIT Madras,
IIT Mumbai, and IIT Delhi
as per NIRE 2022 could find a place in the World ranking. Overall only 35
Indian universities could find a place in the top 1,000 universities of the
Wolrd.
Many of the USA Universities like the previous years ranked
at the top as it seems that the barring one, the World's top universities are
all located in the USA; that is the reason why a large number of students not
only from India but also from across the World used to prefer universities
located in the USA; top 10 universities of the World are the University of Oxford, California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Yale
University, and The University of Chicago. India still needs continued effort
not only to further strengthen its higher education sector but a lot more also
is required to improve the efficiency of its school education sector without
which the higher education sector cannot grow on its own which has become
necessary because of its resolution to attain a high GER of 50 percent in the
year 2035.
The World ranking is also available region wise and the same
for the Asia Region reveals that India is far behind and needs concerted efforts
to improve its higher education & keep pace with the other countries of the
world, such as China for which it needs to allocate at least 6 percent of its
GDP as has been reassured in the recently adopted NEP 2020. As many as 829
institutions reported data from the Asia Region of which 89 institutions were
from India out of which 18 could not be assigned ranks and are termed only as
the Reporter.
With a cursory look at the ranks of the Indian institutions,
one gets the impression that a few not much known have found a place in the
ranking in the Asian Region on the other hand institutions, such as JNU, JMI,
AMU and many of the top-ranked IITs ranked in the 1st to 10th in NIFR 2022 couldn’t find a place in top 150
institutions located in the Asia region. Tsinghua University and Peking
University both from the Peoples' Republic of China are the best in Asia with
their ranks standing at 1st and 2nd in 2022. On the other
hand, the National University of Singapore is the third best institution
located in the Asian Region.
The top-ranked NIRF 2022, the Indian Institute of Science
Banglore is the 42nd best institution in Asia which is followed by
the JSS Academy of Higher Education & Research which is ranked 65th.
Maybe the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Milia Islamia
University, Delhi University, etc are the best-known universities in India but
all of these institutions are ranked much lower respectively at 167th,
160th, in the 201 to 250th bracket all of which indicate that Indian
higher education still needs to improve a lot to keep a pace with the best such
institutions in Asia. Similarly, the top-ranked IITs could not find a place
compared to IIT Ropar (68th Rank), IIT Indore (87th
Rank), IIT Gandhinagar (120th
Rank), Aligarh Muslim University (122th Rank) etc.
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