NIRF RANKING- HOW CREDIBLE IS IT?

A Snippet of Tomorrow’s History Data, according to Yuval Noah Harari, could replace religion as the central belief system of humanity. According to the author, it might eliminate human existence’s element of surprise while also enslaving us to a precision floating – point way of thinking. We are already being moulded toward quantification, which is causing us to develop the fatal addiction of looking for credibility in numbers alone and being duped by them. This is increasingly hampering the field of education. Proof can be found in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). The Human Resource Development Ministry established the NIRF in 2015 in response to complaints about the absence of Indian names in international university rankings. The framework promised annual rankings for colleges and universities and provided a methodology for rating institutions across the nation.

To put themselves above their rivals, institutions are faking national rankings and classifying them at the state, regional, and in some cases, even city level. They distribute advertisements showing higher rankings in categories that are entirely their own creation. The adage “figures do not lie” has been replaced with the modern adage “liars will figure”. Since the beginning of time, our politicians have distorted the truth using figures. They have been employed to falsify the facts and data and mislead the credulous us. The framework becomes complacent and refuses to develop any natural tool to gauge how effectively teachers are imparting knowledge to students or how effectively students are learning in order to arrive at a numerical value about learning at the institutions. It unpretentiously uses shaky statistics like the number of students, the student-to-faculty ratio, the proportion of professors who have PhDs, and the institution’s overall budget to make generalizations. Of course, all of the aforementioned factors may have an impact on the institution’s teaching standards, but it is repugnant to use them as a gauge to ascertain which institution is superior. Some private multi-disciplinary institutions are ranked higher by the NIRF than many esteemed NLUs. It is true that students frequently apply for admission to NLUs; private universities and institutions, with a few exceptions, are almost always their last options. Students who are not able to secure admission to NLU typically choose a private university. The NIRF, however, disputes the aforementioned claim and demonstrates that a private law university received a perception score of 100 percent.

The inclusion of the bulk of publications and citations constitutes a first step in addressing the infamous issue facing western universities: the fate of teaching. Experts are starting to remind people that a university’s primary objective is to support student learning; conducting research comes in second. But as soon as too much emphasis is put on papers and journals, classroom learning is largely downplayed.

Six factors are used to determine the NIRF ranking: teaching-learning, resources, research, professional practise, graduation rates, inclusion, and perception of the institution. Based on the weights assigned to each parameter and sub-parameter, the total score is calculated. The majority of the data comes from third-party websites, with some of it coming directly from the institutions. The aforementioned measures may not be sufficient on their own because an institution’s quality depends on a number of inputs. How can we make the skills that a school or university gives its students one of the key components? Shouldn’t the institution’s size and financial standing be considered as a factor? Should the ranking not be correlated with the financial gains that come to the stakeholders, particularly the students? The desirable traits should be included as variables in the definition of an institution’s objective function, and weight should be assigned to each feature based on how important it is to the overall value proposition that the institute offers.

The Indian educational system has a very diverse student body. Degrees, certificates, and certifications are offered by both new and established institutions. Additionally, there are institutions that specialise in technology versus social sciences, multidisciplinary versus single discipline, private versus public, research-based, innovative, linguistic, or even special-purpose universities. They both operate under quite distinct boundary conditions. One-size-fits-all thinking appears to be the sin that the worldwide rankings systems were originally charged with.

The discrepancy between accreditation and rating is another blatant error. Several universities have received an A from the NAAC, yet they do poorly in the rankings. The NAAC and NBA standings must be taken into account by NIRF. The least one can ask of the NBA or NAAC is that their left hand be aware of what their right hand is doing, despite the fact that the government has no involvement in the process of either rating or certification. Our absence of international staff and students and the insufficiency of our research to relate to the industry are two factors that are absent and set us apart from the worldwide ranking systems. Only if our institutions offer a compelling value proposition and a sign of excellence will international faculty and students visit. Only when the research results in better or new processes and products will there be an industry connection. Patents that are applied for and made into products have value. To make this happen, NIRF’s core committees must include top specialists from both inside and outside the nation. On both of these counts, our institutions have been failing to live up to global expectations since the outset. On both of these counts, our institutions have been failing to live up to global expectations since the outset. NIRF emerged after 2014 with metrics to soothe our egos, but we must be realistic and understand that quality cannot be measured in a silo. Our colleges have the option of being rank insiders or rank outsiders now that they have let go of being judged on a worldwide basis.