Cover Story
Ranking Musings!
MHRD ANNOUNCES SCHEME FOR
National Rankings
of Higher Education Institutions,
Global rankers also ready to titillate Indian universities
In April 2016, India will publish its first-ever national rankings of institutions of higher education after
the ministry of human resources development announced the national institutional ranking
frameworks for engineering & management streams. In a related development, which may raise
interest level in rankings further, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, London will
publish BRICS university rankings, which would be revealed in New Delhi on December 2, 2015
IISc: doing India proud
T
his year September, though
India has made its debut in the
Quacquarelli Symonds' (QS)
list of top 200 universities globally with
the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore and the Indian Institute of
Technology Delhi (IIT-D) having ranked
147 and 179 respectively in the QS
World University Rankings for 2015-16,
the rankings business is still vaguely
understood and undervalued by most
universities in India. Ostensibly stung by
repeated failure of showing up in the
global top 200 rankings in almost every
world rankings survey, a kind of 'blot'
over quality of higher education in India
(aspiring to be a knowledge
superpower), the government education
establishment has come up with a
scheme for national rankings of these
institutions in the hope that such a setting
will eventually propel some of country's
top ranking institutions into top global
rankings. On September 29, after nearly
a year when the union ministry of human
resources development (MHRD)
decided on setting up a reliable,
transparent and authentic
ranking system for higher
education institutions
within the country on the
r e p o r t e d
recommendations of
heads of central and
institutions of national
importance universities
last year August,
documents for a new
national ranking system framework
called the national institutional ranking
framework (NIRF) for engineering and
management categories were unveiled.
Similar documents for ranking
universities along with architecture and
planning institutions is expected to
follow soon. NIRF envisages separate
rankings for different categories of
institutions in their own respective peer
groups, the reasons supplied by the
architects of the new framework are
inclusivity and level playing field.
According to the union HRD minister,
Smriti Irani, the Ranking framework will
empower a larger number of Indian
Institutions to participate in
the global rankings, and
create a significant impact
internationally too. “I see this
as a sensitization process and
an empowering tool, and not
a tool for protection,” she
said at the launch event.
Speaking at a seminar in
Delhi, the newly appointed
secretary for higher
education, V S Oberio said that the first
rankings, which are representative and
as per India's requirements, would be
around April next year. “I don't see this
becoming encompassing and exhaustive
Curriculum November 16 2015
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