HRD ministry to announce national ranking of education institutes tomorrow

Prakash Javadekar will announce result of the second edition of the rankings on Monday

HRD Ministry's ambitious project --National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) - has garnered cold response from higher educational institutions this year with around 800 less participants than last year.

NIRF, a methodology adopted by the ministry to rank all institutions of higher education in the country, was launched in September 2015 with the first edition of the rankings being announced in 2016.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar will announce result of the second edition of the rankings tomorrow.

According to a source, 2,735 institutions have participated in this year's ranking as against last year's 3,563 participants.

However, there are over 800 new participants under the new category introduced from this year onwards, which includes institutions of medical and law.

The NIRF outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. The methodology draws from the overall recommendations and broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and institutions.

The parameters broadly cover "Teaching, Learning and Resources", "Research and Professional Practices", "Graduation Outcomes", "Outreach and Inclusivity" and "Perception".

"For the 2017 rankings, the main parameters have remained the same. However, there are a few significant changes in a few sub-parameters. Also, this year every large institution will be given a common overall rank as well as a discipline specific rank as applicable," a senior HRD official said.

The official, also defended the cold response to the ranking this year saying it is due to stringent norms under the NIRF.

"There are very stringent norms for those participating in the ranking. The institutions are required to submit an affidavit declaring infrastructure availability, developmental plans and much more.

"This could have been the reason behind lesser participation. Also there are not much institutions which have been maintaining the data sought by us for analysis under NIRF, so they may participate in coming years," the official said.

In the last year's ranking, JNU and Hyderabad university, which were at the centre of massive rows, topped the list of central varsities while IIT-Madras and IIM-Bangalore led among technological and management institutions.

In the technological institutions category, IIT Mumbai was placed second, followed by IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur. Manipal College of Pharmacy was ahead of others in the category of Pharmacy education.

Some academicians had criticised the first ranking saying the list was full of "surprises" even as the ministry maintained that the rankings were based on the data submitted by varsities.