The ranking is all about the institution’s agility to curate data proactively through proper documentation for assessment. 
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Recently the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) published its results under various categories including Overall, Universities, State Public Universities, Open Universities, Skill Universities, Colleges, Research Institutions, Innovation Institutions, Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Architecture and Planning, Law, Medical, Dental, Agriculture and Allied Sectors. On a positive note, the ranking framework has enabled the colleges to benchmark themselves using the framework and build capacity to meet the demand.

The idea of including state public universities as a separate category is an inclusive approach that brought Anna University and Bharathiar University from Tamil Nadu into the limelight by placing them in first and eighth positions respectively. This was implemented based on central universities being able to access relatively higher funding resources in contrast to state public universities. However, still there is scope for streamlining and refining the framework to be more inclusive and equitable.

First, it has been consistently inferred that only Delhi-based institutions occupy the top five to six positions followed by colleges from other states. If one looks carefully into the numerical strength of these institutions, many host around 1500 to 4000 students. Moreover, Delhi-based institutions primarily focus on undergraduate education and postgraduate courses are mostly conducted by the Delhi University. On the other hand, the ranked institutions in South India predominantly have research as a culture owing to their postgraduate education. The question of comparing institutions of different orders on the same platform is not equitable as the efforts in curating and managing the data would not be of the same order.

Justice and fairness

Second, though “outreach and inclusivity” are part of the parameters, the equity performance of academic institutions is not reckoned as part of the NIRF metrics to measure the practice of “justice” and “fairness” through distributive equity that solicits a different treatment to the disadvantaged institutions in order to practice SDG 4. Therefore, colleges that perform excellently well with the available socio-economic status (SES) and demographic constrictions are not able to scale up under the ranking framework. Institutions ranked due to their exclusive cognitive excellence and meritocratic philosophy for admissions are valued through the existing framework more than inclusive institutions that admit students hailing from varied learning styles . Institutions with socio-economic advantage, demographic, historical legacy, exclusive identity, familial networks, social support system, personal endowments, material wealth, and a host of other intangibles that work in tandem to boost their prospects have to be differentiated from that of disadvantaged while evaluating performance under various rubrics.

Third, assessment of ‘teaching and learning’ processes give importance to the infrastructure as per the framework than to the competency of the human resources, thus requiring a controlled perception building by the institution. However this has led to marketing manipulations by the institutions. Thus, if one goes only by the NIRF ranking, students ending up in a college with a low quality of education but better infrastructure with best data capture or simulation system.

Institution’s USP

Fourth, each institution is known for intangible non-cognitive traits as a unique selling proposition that would add value to its culture. Academic success, personality and leadership development are created through ‘social learning’ integrated as part of the ‘campus life’ through non-credited activities. Though prescribing metrics for this is beyond this article’s scope, it can be perceived that a longitudinal qualitative assessment to capture the institution’s USP through qualitative assessment would beget a comprehensive perception. A few representative performance indicators of social learning could be civic responsibility, political agility, networking ability and social astuteness.

Finally, it obvious that NIRF ranking is all about the institution’s agility to curate data proactively through proper documentation for assessment. The question as to whether the data and the academic reality are conformable is a question that is to be debated, as NIRF does not involve physical verification.

(Views expressed are personal)

The writer is the Principal and Secretary, Madras Christian College, Chennai