Demystifying the yearly progression in the recent NIRF rankings 2023 of State and Private Indian Universities/Institutes

“Ranking does not confer privilege or give power, it imposes responsibility” Peter ducker has rightly said.

The recent NIRF ranking results for 2023 has embarked upon several new insights and facts for the leading and lagging educational institutes w.r.t previous years. NIRF framework was established and launched on 29th September, 2015 by Ministry of Education and this is the eighth consecutive edition of India Rankings of institutions of higher education in India.

National Institute Ranking Framework ranks institutes in the following five parameters:

1. Teaching Learning and Resources
2. Research and Professional Practice
3. Graduation Outcome
4. Outreach and Inclusivity
5. Perception

Each parameter has been assigned with a particular weightage and has been further divided into sub-parameters.

• Teaching Learning and Resources focusses on the core academic resources which students might be interested in to know about their preferred institute of study. It focusses on the student to faculty ratio, student strength, faculty with Ph.D. with their experience and financial resources and their utilization. The lowest TLR in the recent rankings is 52.14 in the overall category and 49.81 in the university category out of 100. The highest is 86.45 in the overall and 82.43 in the university category. By looking at the average of the score among highest and lowest, one can easily decide the quality of academic resources and equitable faculty resources deployed by HEIs for the teaching learning practices in their respective institutes.
• Research and Professional Practice focusses entirely on the research intensive achievements of HEIs/institutes. According to NEP 2020, more emphasis on skill based, research based and project based learning to be given and this score in this parameter is directly linked with the research outcome of any institute which may be of interest of PG aspiring candidate. This parameter comprises of the overall research publications in terms of both quantity and quality, patents filed, published, granted and licensed, research projects, faculty development programs and MDPs. In the recent NIRF results, the highest score in the overall category is 89.88 and the lowest is 18.96 out of 100 and in the university category, it is 88.45 as highest and is 24.54 as lowest out of 100.
• Graduation Outcome focusses on the student success and progression in terms of placements, salary packages, fulfilling student aspirations and student progression to higher studies. This parameter should be of paramount interest for the aspiring candidate to choose the right institute for fulfilling their dream career.
• Outreach and Inclusivity focusses on the diversification of the student community with the appropriate ratio of females in the university ecosystem. This parameter actually weighted upon the type of academic environment and opportunities for the students of off state and overseas to look over.
• Perception plays the most important role in the ranking framework as it actually reflects the word to mouth reputation for any institution. The alumni, employers, international partners, parents and public opinion about the institute is one of the most important factor in determining the quality of academics in any institute/university.

Some of the benchmarks achieved in the current ranking results:

Overall Category: Out of 2478 participating institutes, the rank has been awarded to top 100 institutes. There are many institutes who have taken a quantum leap in the rank as compared to previous year 2022 as mentioned below:

• Thapar Institute of Technology jumps from 57 to 40
• Lovely Professional University jumps from 58 to 46
• UPES, Dehradun jumps from 97 to 79

whereas Amity University lagged down to 57 from 42 in 2022.

University Category: In this category, Sharda University has taken the position of 87in the league of top 200 universities. The institutes who have taken a quantum leap in the rank as compared in the previous year 2022 are:

• Thapar Institute of Technology jumps from 31 to 22
• Jain University rose from 79 to 68
• Lovely Professional University jumps from 47 to 38
• UPES Dehradun jumps from 65 to 52
• Graphic Era jumps from 74 to 55
• Shoolini University jumps from 96 to 73
• MMU Ambala jumps from 91 to 78

whereas Amity University lags down to 35 from 22 in the previous year and Central University lags down to 100 from 82 in the previous year.

Worth to mention that a total of 22 universities who have bagged in the top 200 NIRF ranked universities belong only from Tamil Nadu.

Lastly, it is imperative to mention that many NAAC A+ and A++ accredited universities have not been able to make up for any rank in the NIRF ranking chart which develops a mark of question to the parameters and methodology adopted for both accreditations and rankings frameworks in India. It is now high time for the Ministry of Education to analyze and look upon the parameters and uniform methodology so that the results of one type should be mapped and reflect true picture in the other.

#ugc #nirf2023 MAMIDALA JAGADESH KUMAR Ministry of Education