Is NIRF Ranking worth believing? Does it need attention?
The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) working under the Ministry of Education, Government of India has issued rankings of colleges, Universities and institutions placing some of them above all other educational institutions in India by way of ranking. NIRF has been doing this activity for the last few years. The NIRF issues ranking in the field of Universities, Colleges, Research Institutions, Engineering, Management, Medical, Dental, Law, Architecture & Planning, Agriculture & Allied Sectors and Innovations.
The NIRF says that the parameters which have been set for issuing ranking are Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcome (GO), (Outreach and Inclusivity (OI), and Peer Perception.
Although the NIRF Ranking has always been surprising but this year’s NIRF Ranking in the field of Law is not only surprising but also shocking. There have been many institutions that have been given preference over other well-established and great institutions in this field.
Till the last year top 10 Law Schools appeared to be reliable and out of the rest 20 Law Schools some of them appeared to be forceful entries but this year’s rank is surprising since the forceful entries found a place in the top 10 Law Schools also. This insertion creates doubt for the purposes of the worthiness of this list.
Not only the drop of many great Law Schools from the list such as GLC, Mumbai, NLU Jodhpur, and ILSPune but also the placement of these institutions like LPU is placed above BHU, NUJS Kolkata and NLIU Bhopal raises a big question mark on the entire list and its functioning and reliability.
NLU, Jodhpur which was placed at No.10 in the ranking of 2022 and at Sr. No. 8 in the year 2021 does not find a place in this year’s ranking.
Every year one or two private Law School finds its place in the list and in the next year, it is washed out. Like in the year Shanmugha Arts Science Technology & Research Academy was there in the list at serial no. 19 in 2022 and at Sr No. 17 in 2021 but this is not there in the list of 2023.
ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education was there in the list of 2021 but in 2022 and 2023 it is not there.
The arrival of Manipal University, Jaipur in this year’s list at serial number 29 is also very surprising which has been given preference over NLU Jodhpur, ILS Pune and GLC Mumbai.
The NIRF being a public functioning body, shall not only release the list every year but shall also release the mechanism of placing the rankings of these institutions. The NIRF has certainly set a criteria for issuing the ranking and that criteria is good enough to issue a correct ranking but it appears that the process of doing the same has been ignored or compromised.
The Government of India shall look into this otherwise this system of ranking would become a joke and no heed would be paid by the public to this raking and ranking system. Public at large has started speaking against the system of evaluating these colleges. It requires urgent attention at the higher lever. We are struggling to get a place among the top colleges in the world and this system of recognizing the Colleges and Universities would diminish the ranking system.