The National Institutional Ranking Framework

(MainsGS2:Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

• The eighth edition of NIRF, released by the Ministry of Education, is an assessment of universities and colleges in India.

Maintaining ranking:

• It evaluates institutions on weighted variables i.e.student strength, faculty qualifications, infrastructure and the number of economically and socially deprived students. 
• For five years, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has maintained its dominance as the top-ranked higher-education institute in India.
• The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi (AIIMS) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have also been consistently placed in the top 10.

Indian approach:

• Launched in 2015, NIRF was meant to “follow an Indian approach that considers India-centric parameters like diversity and inclusiveness apart from excellence in teaching and learning and research.
• NIRF also addresses the limitations of international rankings, which may not account for region-specific context.

• India has 1,113 universities, 43,796 colleges and 11,296 stand-alone institutions, according to the India Survey on Higher Education. 
• Out of these, 5,543 unique institutions (9.86% of the total) participated in the ranking exercise across 13 categories — ‘overall’, universities, medical, engineering, management, law, architecture, colleges, research institutions, pharmacy, dental, agriculture and allied sectors, and innovation.

Evaluation parameters:

• The higher education institutes were evaluated across five parameters, weighted differently: Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR, 30%); Research and Professional Practice (RP, 30%); Graduation Outcome (GO, 20%); Outreach and Inclusivity (OI, 10%); Perception of the institute (10%). 
• Each parameter has a sub-category. For the total 100-mark OI score, the four sub-parameters are students from other states/countries (30), women diversity (30), economically and socially challenged students (ESCS, 20), facilities for physically challenged students (PCS, 20). 
• The representation of students from marginalised locations is thus given 2% weightage in the overall ranking.