Professor Surendra Prasad, chairman, National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and member, core committee, National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), and his team tirelessly worked for more than six months and to prepare the rankings of the Indian educational institutions. He shares the need of such a ranking system and the credibility of the rankings with A.Ragu Raman from Deccan Chronicle.
Q Can you tell us the need of NIRF, the Indian version of university ranking system?
There are several good reasons: It can help sensitize educational institutions towards improving themselves in areas of weakness. It recognises better institutions for their accomplishments. And it can empower students and their parents to choose an institute for education based on its position with respect to its peers. The Indian version will do this for a much larger number of institutions than any international ranking system can do, since at best only a few top institutions will count in most international rankings, leaving a whole lot without scrutiny.
Q What are the main challenges you faced while ranking the institutions?
There were many challenges. To start, we had to agree on a system of parameters. Then there was the stupendous task of designing a system for collecting data in a simple format from interested institutions. Finally, the biggest challenge was scrutiny of data before using it for rankings.
Q How far can we say the rankings are credible? Have you verified the data given by the educational institutions with the independent sources?
The quality of Rankings can be only as good as the underlying data. To start we assumed that institutions have been careful in giving data. But we got the data carefully scrutinised by independent experts who looked at inconsistencies and outliers. Wherever there was a question mark, the concerned institution was contacted for either clarification or correction of data.
Some of the data, like data for research and citations was taken only from independent sources like Scopus, Web of Science and Indian Citation
Index. So, on the whole, institutions which have been ranked, we have a reason to believe that the data was credible. However, to ensure further transparency, all the data for each institution has also been published along with their ranks for independent scrutiny by the public at large.
Q Why no ranking of arts and science colleges released?
The participation in this category was quite weak and not truly representative. Hence it was thought that we need to correct that situation before announcing any ranks there.
Q The rankings were dominated by the centrally funded higher education institutions - Can you specify the reasons for their dominance?
One simple reason is the generous funding that these institutions normally enjoy. But it was very gratifying to note that many state-funded and even privately funded institutions were amongst the top institutions.
Q People say the rankings very much predictable in the Indian context. Your reactions?
Yes they could be predictable for a few top institutions. I do not know whether the same could be said for institutions beyond Rank 10. There could be many pleasant surprises there!
Q Can you share the details of the rankings of institutions released today?
In NIRF website, you will see ranks for the top 100 in the Universities and Engineering Categories, and 50 each for Management and Pharmacy Categories.
Q Which areas need improvement in ranking framework?
We have learnt a lot, and we shall certainly make use of these learnings in the future. The most important area of attention would be bringing in methods for improving the data quality supplied by institutions.
Q Many universities are absent in rank list. In future will it be made mandatory for all the institutions to submit their details for the rankings?
I am not sure this can be made mandatory. But this is really for the Government or Regulators to say. We at NIRF only rank those who apply to us for ranking.
