Ranking pitfalls, Pg6

Key Highlights:

• India Rankings (IR) 2025, based on the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), maintained the dominance of older public institutions.
• The number of participating institutions in NIRF has grown from 3,565 in 2016 to 14,163 in 2025, expanding its scope to 17 categories.
• NIRF evaluates institutions based on five parameters: teaching, learning & resources (30%), research (30%), graduation outcomes (20%), outreach & inclusivity (10%), and peer perception (10%).
• The peer perception parameter is criticised for being subjective and potentially biased, disadvantaging suburban or state-run institutions.
• The Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) parameter inadequately prioritizes data on students who are economically and socially disadvantaged and with disabilities.

Detailed Insights:

• The NIRF relies on verifiable metrics and third-party audits but depends heavily on bibliometric data and self-declared inputs from institutions.
• The NIRF booklet focuses on regional and gender diversity within the OI parameter, omitting data on economically and socially disadvantaged students and those with disabilities, despite their 20% weightage.
• Only Jawaharlal Nehru University and AIIMS Delhi are among the top 10 institutions with OI scores above 70, highlighting restricted access to higher education for marginalized communities.
• The NIRF should expand the scope of OI to include institutional adherence to communal reservation policies in faculty recruitment, addressing vacancies for OBC, SC, and ST categories.
• The insights from IR should address regional imbalances, faculty shortages outside top institutions, and the need for legacy institutions to mentor emerging ones.
• Action is needed against institutions submitting false data to prevent NIRF from becoming a mere ranking platform that benefits private institutions without improving overall quality and equity.

Key Concepts Involved:

• NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework): A framework adopted by the Ministry of Education to rank higher education institutions in India.
• Peer Perception: A subjective parameter in NIRF based on feedback from experts and employers, influencing an institution’s ranking.
• Outreach and Inclusivity (OI): A NIRF parameter measuring an institution's efforts to include diverse groups, including regional, gender, and socio-economically disadvantaged students.