The government has unveiled an indigenous ranking framework for higher educational institutions that it believes will give Indian institutions a competitive platform free of any international bias.
About: The National Institutional Ranking Framework marks a paradigm shift by including perceptions of students and parents in the ranking.
- Initially, it will be voluntary for institutions to sign up for the ranking.
- The ranking will be done by an independent and autonomous body and the exercise will be an annual affair.
- It provides a transparent means for institutions to engage with students.
- The ranking framework is designed in such a manner that institutions, belonging to different fields like engineering and management, would be compared separately in their own respective peer groups.
The framework will evaluate institutions on five parameters—
- teaching, learning and resources (TLR)
- research, professional practice and collaborative performance (RPC)
- graduation outcome (GO)
- outreach and inclusivity (OI)
- perception (PR) of end users
The HRD ministry will rank institutions vertically—engineering, management, universities, etc. Besides, it will also create two categories. Category A: those focusing on research and teaching; and Category B: those focusing primarily on teaching.
Why such a framework was necessary?
- International ranking agencies only consider research work done in English, the body of work in regional languages is not considered.
- Social inclusion or the reservation system is often not considered by international ranking agencies.
- This framework gives new institutions a level playing field with older institutions.
Performance of Indian institutions: Indian universities, including the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have failed to garner a respectable ranking year after year in the World University Rankings, done by various international agencies like Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds or QS.
Recently, British ranking agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranked the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, at 147 and 179, respectively, in the QS World University Rankings for 2015-16. This is the first time in years that two Indian institutes have been placed in the Top 200 of global education.