Why Indian Universities Should Have Subject-Wise Ranking

New Delhi: According to Education Statistics 2016, the percentage enrolment in Arts/ Humanities/ Social Sciences subjects at under graduate level is 40.24. If we include the 13.98 percentage enrolment in Commerce subjects, the cumulative enrolment of students in Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Commerce is more than 50% and yet there is no regulated ranking system for Arts, Humanities and Commerce colleges in the country. MHRD, in 2015, introduced the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and since last two years has been ranking institutes across the country. However, there is a clear gap felt for individual ranking of Arts and Commerce colleges.

In NIRF Ranking 2017, Universities, colleges and institutes were ranked in six broad categories - Overall ranking, Universities, Engineering institutes, Management institutes, Colleges, and Pharmacy institutes. Though, Arts and Commerce were ranked, there was no subject-wise ranking. So, while it is easy to determine, during admission season, which college is best for engineering or management, the 50+ per cent students do not have a reference point for the best college for their particular subject of study. 

Universities, other than the ones which are dedicated to solely one stream of education such as Engineering or management institutes, need a framework where stream-wise or subject-wise ranking is also provided, as is the practice with some of the popular global university ranking systems. 

Another loophole in the ranking system is the absence of ranking for medical, dental and nursing institutes. 

So far, MHRD ranks Indian institutes on the basis of Teaching, Learning and Resources, Research and Professional Practice, Graduation Outcome, Outreach and Inclusivity, and Perception. While these ranking parameters do inform about the quality of education and infrastructure, the absence of a parameter to rank institutes for the subjects or streams offered feels a bit inadequate.

The global system of rankings are not efficient and fair when it comes to Indian Universities. As per Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2018, there were no Indian Universities in top 400 universities which were ranked. In the QS World University Ranking 2018, University of Delhi features at 210th rank and Jawaharlal Nehru University features at 247th rank for Arts and Humanities. 

MHRD has begun the registration process for NIRF Rankings 2018 and it can only be hoped that this time there would be more Arts and Commerce colleges in the top and a more comprehensive subject-wise ranking may be revealed. 

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