Page 22 - EW June 2023

Education News

DELHI NIRF 2022 published by the Union
Rankings imbroglio education ministry, IISc is ranked

the country’s #1 university.
Recently (March) Prof.
Bhushan Patwardhan, who was
appointed chairman of NAAC in
February 2022, resigned from his
post in protest against the opaque
and questionable ratings awarded
by NAAC, expressing apprehen-
sion about the “possibility of vested
interests, malpractices, leading to the
awarding of questionable grades to
some HEIs”.
Not that the NIRF rankings
inspire much confidence either. In
NIRF 2022 which is heavily skewed
in favour of government HEIs, in
its overall Top 100 league table
(headed by IIT-Madras), Bharathiar
University, Coimbatore (#24),
NAAC headquarters, Bangalore. Inset: Prof. Bhushan Patwardhan Savitribai Phule University, Pune
(#25) and Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan,
ollege and university rankings NAAC accreditation is a tedious Bhubaneswar (#30) are ranked
have always been a controver- and expensive affair. In addition to higher than the highly regarded
Csial issue in India. There are paying a fee — Rs.6.5 lakh — inevi- Birla Institute of Technology and
several government rankings agen- tably, there’s a massive amount of Science (BITS-Pilani) ranked #32
cies notably the Bengaluru-based paperwork involved. After much and commonly accepted as the
National Assessment and Accredita- form-filling, NAAC deputes an private sector equivalent of the
tion Council (NAAC, estb.1994) and inspection team mainly comprising top-ranked government-run IITs. In
latterly the Union education minis- retired academics to the applicant the EducationWorld India Higher
try’s National Institutional Rank- HEIs to audit — at the applicant Education Rankings 2023-24 (which
ing Framework (NIRF, estb.2015). college/university’s expense — and excludes IITs), BITS-Pilani is ranked
Neither of these official HEIs (higher verify their excellence claims. And India’s #1 private engineering and
education institutions) ranking agen- it’s well-known in academia and technology university. Moreover,
cies inspire much confidence within the knowledgeable public that in Amity University, ranked India’s
the academic community or among instances where visiting task forces #1 multidisciplinary university in
school-going students and college are provided excellent on-campus EWIHER 2023-24, is ranked #42 in
graduates searching for higher edu- hospitality and gifts, these institu- NIRF 2022.
cation options. tions tend to receive high A and A++ In November 2022 an Overarch-
Since it was established 29 years ratings. ing Committee was constituted after
ago, NAAC has accredited only 418 Recently eyebrows were raised reports of compromised data security
universities (out of 1,113 country- over NAAC awarding the Bhu- were revealed by an in-house inquiry
wide) and 9,062 undergrad colleges baneswar-based Siksha ‘O’ Anu- committee appointed by Prof. Pat-
(42,000) under the voluntary HEIs sandhan (SOA) private deemed wardhan, and other adverse reports
accreditation system. Most new university the highest score of 3.88 on NAAC received media attention.
genre private liberal arts, law, sci- out of a maximum 5.00 — a rating Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, a
ence and engineering HEIs, which higher than of the Indian Institute of former ISRO chairman and currently
are transforming Indian education, Science, Bangalore (IISc) and every Chairman of the Board of Governors
don’t bother about NAAC accredi- other university countrywide. at IIT-Kanpur, was asked to pre-
tation which at best is an add-on. According to a Times of India re- pare a roadmap for aligning NAAC,
Neither do the multiplying tribe of port (October 2, 2022), “seven insti- NBA (of AICTE) and NIRF for the
education consultants or students tutes, all in the private domain have proposed National Accreditation
looking for higher study options. a NAAC score that is higher than the Council (NAC), a vertical decreed to
Moreover for HEIs, acquiring best Indian university”. Ironically in be established under the National

22 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2023