National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Universities and colleges for the year 2021 was released on 9th September by the Ministry of Education (MoE). Whereas the Director of the Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) was visibly unhappy, the Directors of IIT Madras and the Director of IISc were visibly elated at the results. Most of the others appear indifferent. Whereas BHU ranked third best institution after Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, which bagged first and second places respectively, BHU has been ranked tenth in overall rankings. IIT Madras has been ranked the best educational institution in India.
The rankings are based on six parameters such as Teaching Learning and Resources pertaining to core activities, Research and Professional Practice which brings excellence in teaching and learning along with scholarship, Graduation Outcomes which test the effectiveness of the teaching/learning process, Outreach and inclusivity which lays emphasis on representation of women and marginalised sections of the society and Perception that considers the world view. These parameters have sub parameters. To be simple, each parameter and sub-parameter is assigned an overall weight. The overall score for ranking is computed, based on the weights allotted to each head. Some of the data required for assigning scores is provided by the institutions themselves and the rest is sourced from third party sites. Obviously, everything hinges on the relevant data and weights assigned for each sub-head.
Quality of an institution is a function of several inputs. Can an institution/university be ranked for the skills that it imparts? Should the financial health and size of the institution/university not be a criterion? Should then the financial benefits that accrue be linked to the ranking? Ideally, an objective function must be defined for an institution/university, with the desired attributes as variables and weightages apportioned to each such attribute that depends on their importance in the overall value proposition that the institute serves. We could then fit a perfect equation to solve and optimise for a number that may vary on a scale of 1 to 10. Of course, such equations would tend to be nonlinear, but then quality and performance were never linear. In a massive system such as ours, an ordering based on metrics can be a disincentive. We seek a student performance on cumulative performance and prefer grouping on grades attained, but would still opt for institutions to be listed in arithmetic progression.
Whereas IISc, with 464 faculty for 4,000 students, has a faculty ratio of 1:8.6, and receives about 350 Cr Central Grant, BHU with 2,000 teachers for 32,000 students has a ratio of 1:16 and receives a Grant of about 200 Cr. In the Union Budget 2021, whereas the government allocation was Rs 7,686 crore to IITs, the total outlay for all central universities was Rs 7643.26 crores. Some departments in IIT’s have even better faculty ratios since they are not bound by the cadre rules applicable to State universities. Is it not expected that the outcomes will then be different? While the State institution/university budgets are ridiculously low, they are all competing on the same quality parameters and are expected to outperform the better endowed ones, if they wish to better their rankings. Is it a case of Apples and oranges?
Two factors differentiate us from the institutions in the west. Internationalisation and Industry connect. Lack of international faculty and students on our campuses and inadequacy of our research to connect with the industry. These are for good reasons. International faculty and students will arrive only if they see a value proposition in our institutions, an indicator of quality. Industry connect will happen only when the research translates into improved or new processes and improved or new products. Patents filed have no value. Patents granted have some value. Patents translated to products have all the value. Our institutions fall on Global expectations on both counts. As a consequence, NIRF arrived to assuage our ruffled feathers. But then, quality cannot be measured in a silo.
There are at least 20 Global Ranking agencies in the World that measure quality on various parameters. Whereas there are good research institutes, there are also good teaching institutes. Those that do both well are nurtured, are more than 100 years old and very few. The world over, ranking such institutes credibly is a matter of debate and research.
Australia has Research Performance Index that measures University Research Performance. The Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University maintains a European and worldwide ranking of the top 500 universities based on the number and impact of Web of Science-indexed publications per year. The QS World University Rankings rank the world’s top universities and are published annually since 2004. In 2009, QS even launched the QS Asian University Rankings in partnership with the ‘Chosun Ilbo’ newspaper in Korea. They rank the top 350 Asian universities. Round University Ranking, (RUR) is another world university ranking, which assesses effectiveness of 750 leading universities in the world based on 20 indicators distributed among 4 key dimension areas: teaching, research, international diversity and financial sustainability. Times Higher Education (THE), a British publication, and Thomson Reuters provide a new set of world university rankings, called Times Higher Education World University Rankings since 2011.
Interestingly, there is also a ‘Ranking of Rankings’ ‘UniRanks’ launched in 2017. It aggregates the results of five global rankings, combining them to form a single rank. It uses THE World University Ranking 22.5%, QS World University Ranking 22.5%, US News Best Global University 22.5%, ARWU 22.5%, and Reuters World Top 100 Innovative Universities 10%.
Quality comes at a price. Is not NIRF doing the same to our institutions as the Global rankings have done earlier? The diversity in the Indian education system is large. There are 2/3/4/5-year institutions offering degrees/diplomas/certifications. There are also technology vs social sciences institutions, multi-disciplinary v/s single discipline, private v/s public, research based, innovation based, language based or even special purpose institutions/universities. The boundary conditions in which they operate are very different. Can they all be grouped under same parameters for a quality check? Is it time to also check return on investment (ROI) of these institutions especially when several of our students from elite institutions, educated on public money don’t even serve within the country? Surely, ROI is an important parameter missed out in NIRF Rankings.