National Institutional Ranking Framework for higher education institutions

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry is considering linking the autonomy of higher education institutions to their performance as measured by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). Greater autonomy could imply a number of things, including the complete freedom to have their own syllabi and curricula.

The government is thinking of dividing universities into three categories — A, B and C — on the basis of their NIRF rankings.

1.     The A category will comprise institutions with high NIRF rank and these will be highest on the autonomy scale

2.     The B category will comprise middle-ranking institutions with part autonomy but also government regulation.

3.     Category C will mean institutions with low ranking that will require greater regulation and hand-holding for improvement.

Background:

As per the 2016 rankings, IIT Madras topped among engineering colleges, followed by IITs at Mumbai, Kharagpur, Delhi, Kanpur and Roorkee. IIT Madras had a score of 89.41.

• Among universities, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, topped, followed by the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Hyderabad University and Tezpur University. Among management schools, IIM Bengaluru was ranked first with a score of 93.04, followed by the IIMs at Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Udaipur and Kozhikode.
• The next round of NIRF rankings will be published on the first Monday of April 2017.

What is NIRF?

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) has been approved by the MHRD and was launched in September, 2015. This framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. The methodology draws from the overall recommendations and broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and institutions.

• The parameters broadly cover “Teaching, Learning and Resources”, “Research and Professional Practices”, “Graduation Outcomes”, “Outreach and Inclusivity” and “Perception”.
• NIRF has been given the responsibility of ranking institutions that have applied and submitted their data. The ranking of the Institutions will be done based on the parameters proposed by NIRF for different disciplines.