Challenges of National Institute’s Ranking Framework (NIRF)

National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) was initiated by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, to rank the existing higher education institutions.[1] The ranking is based on various parameters such as teaching and learning, research and professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity and peer perception.[1] The evaluation of the institutions and colleges based on these parameters is expected to help the students, who are the major stakeholders, to choose the best colleges according to their scores in the entrance examination. The ranking was a welcome move into Indian Education as there was no such ranking system available. It was developed to encourage a healthy and positive competitive force among the institutes and that the institutes would do their best to excel. Since its inception, the ranking framework is being questioned for its parameters.[2] Some of the parameters have been allotted too much of weightage, and this might affect ranking. If we introspect into it, we find that in research section, the number of publications and quality of publications have been included.[3] High weightage to the number of publications is eventually leading to the increased number of publications by the universities and colleges and there is increased pressure on faculty to write papers. Some private institutes pay incentives in the form of cash for writing papers in high-impact indexed journals. Nowadays, there are many indexed journals which publish the articles after taking hefty article processing charges and their publication time is also less. The hardships faced during publishing an article in reputed journals after repeated rejections or revisions and are time-consuming process is being overlooked by the present ranking system. This is painful as the hard work of a deserving faculty who has conducted ethical and honest research is being suppressed and discouraged in this race of ranking. It is like now institutes are becoming research publication manufacturing units instead of institutes of excellence. In many reports, it is claimed that the practice of self-citations and citation by colleagues from the same institute has increased vigorously to score better in the ranking system. This is very common in the private institutes.[3] Hence, the colleges are indirectly manipulating the scores of the ranking system. The parameter on faculty quality and experience does not include research impact or reputation of faculty among students and employers or their inter-institutional or international collaborations.[3] Hence, the actual quality of teaching–learning remains grossly masked, with merely the tip of iceberg being included for scoring at present. Students, being the major stakeholders in the educational institutes, must have their say, and feedback from the students must be considered for judging the faculty quality. The ranking considers only the online courses which are offered by the institutes through Swayam Portal.[4] However, any other online course/training resources are not considered for the ranking. This does not favour an unbiased and fair scoring system, as the institutes registered in Swayam portal would definitely score better than the ones which are not. The student strength is another parameter under teaching and learning section of the ranking, which holds a good weightage. This means that the institutions having a larger number of intake of the students would score better.[2] The ranking is meant for the evaluation of the quality and performance of the institutions. However, a higher number of students does not reflect the quality of the institution. An increased number of students may be possible due to easy admission procedures or ability to afford high fees or lack of entrance examination or admission allowed for low scorers in entrance examination with high donation money. All these factors affect the student strength of an institute and indirectly the ranking as well. Hence, this parameter seems to be defective and must be removed from consideration in ranking. The ranking scores are influenced by the regional diversity of students.[4] This parameter also holds a significant share of the scoring system. Again, the state colleges may be affected as the students seeking admission to these colleges mostly belong to the same state with a lesser number of students from across the country. This is a limiting factor in the scoring for the state/regional colleges. Peer perception is another parameter included in the ranking framework, which can be easily manipulated.[3] Many college/institute heads influence their colleagues in order to receive better peer perception. Moreover, wide publicity showcasing the achievements of the institute, making the institute visible everywhere by participating in both national and regional events like academic or cultural fests may be some factors which affect the peer perception. Further, nowadays, many colleges hire services from private agencies to fill their data for the ranking and these agencies tailor the data so as to curate the best possible outcome. The older and well-established universities receive huge grants and have well-developed infrastructure with larger student intake and better placement records, whereas the newly established institutes do not match these reputed institutes and would need time to grow up to their level. Procuring high-end equipment and developing advanced lab or facility in government organizations require approvals at various levels, and they have to face several checks to curb unauthentic purchase of equipment. This poses a hindrance in developing such huge infrastructures in new institutes and is a time-taking process. However, the NIRF ranking does not consider this difference in the age of the institutes and compares them together, leading to a strong bias where the older reputed institutes always top the list. There can be separate categories for the old and new institutes to avoid this gap. Further, not all the institutes participate in the ranking, so this does not give a clear picture of the non-participating institutes that might be doing great in terms of research, academics, work culture, etc. So when a student has to choose college he/she will avoid these non-participating colleges or might keep them as their last choice. If we see the list of top colleges in different disciplines, we find that private colleges, which are quite young, are making their way into the top positions.[5] Their scores are better in terms of faculty quality when compared to the most prestigious institutes such as IITs, IISC or IIMs. This means that the best faculties are placed in these institutes rather than the prestigious ones, which is not true. It reflects the flaw in the ranking system, but students will remain unaware of these facts based on the ranking acquired by these private colleges and will seek admission there even if they have to pay a large sum of money as for their course fees. The ranking is based on data which is being submitted by the institute and there is no means to cross-check the data. Hence, the reliability of the data is questionable. The ranking system emerged in a bid to evaluate and rank the educational institutions and was a very much-needed and applaudable step by the government. However, there are lacunae and some concerns which have remained unaddressed till date. The discrepancy in the scoring achieved by some newly established private institutions has revealed various flaws in the system, and these flaws need to be rectified by the policymakers in the coming years as the students who are novice and their parents who have lots of aspirations from them have the right to correct information about the institutions before seeking admission. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.