‘India Rankings Society, A separate and specialized body, is directed to administer and control the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) from the next academic year’ K.K. Agarwal, Chairman, National Board of Accreditation, which has been carrying out the task from some years, said in Tiruchi on this Thursday.
The higher educational institutes in the country, under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), are ranked every year-end under separate categories based on a set of said parameters, which includes teaching and learning about the resources, research about the subject and outcomes of graduation.
“The task (of ranking) was given to us temporarily as additional work. We will have a separate ranking body in place, if not this year, definitely by the next academic year. We want to concentrate on accreditation,” Dr Agarwal told on the sidelines of Tamil Nadu Higher Education conclave (Confederation of Indian Industry).
There were many queries regarding how and what will be the procedure. During giving answers to the questions on the complaints and doubts about the previous year rankings, which were carried keeping in mind the documents presented by institutions, he solely agreed to the point that there were issues present regarding the rankings, and that was one primary reason for creating a separate body.
The number of institutions for higher education is massive as the classification is done across colleges and universities. It was not quite achievable to verify everything. “Some of our colleges give wrong information and do it so well that they are almost camouflaged,” Dr Agarwal acknowledged. He also mentioned affirmatively that the new society would be able to focus on these issues.
Accreditation of NBA
Currently, about 15% of programs (including technical institutions) were accredited by the NBA. “Being a member of the Washington Accord, we have a list of global level attributes required for the accreditation. We cannot deviate from them. We have certain baseline questions, and if institutions are not ready, they do not come to us. They understand getting NBA accreditation is tough, but good,” he said.
The NBA was conducting workshops for the institutions to prepare to go for the accreditation, he added. He felt that the NBA would also hold an important role to play under the New Education Policy, too, as certification has been made mandatory. “If the volume of work is massive, we might have some more accreditation agencies,” he observed.
Earlier, at the conference, he saw the fact that the industry-institute synergy is quite essential; still, it has not happened.
Justifying the need for presenting the changes in the system, he pointed out that the concepts of business and industry have substantially changed.
Shasi Anand Sridharan, event chairman, said the CII was more than keen to act as a bridge between industry-academia and policymakers as the country is on the verge of ushering in the New Education Policy.
G.V. Selvam, convenor, CII, TN Education Panel, said higher education institutions needed to improve the quality of education and placements and strengthen infrastructure and institute-industry interface.
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