BHUBANESWAR: The all-India ranking of national institutions released by Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) on Monday brought cheer to Odisha’s higher education sector.
While private universities and all-India institutes have made it to the top bracket, none of the State-run institutions find a place in the top ranking.
Four educational institutions of the State including Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) University, National Institute of Technology-Rourkela (NIT-R), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bhubaneswar and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) have topped the overall list. While SOA University has been placed at the 33rd spot, NIT-R secured 46th rank, IIT-Bhubaneswar has bagged the 66th rank and KIIT figures in the 79th spot in the Overall category, according to the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).
NIRF made the assessment on five parameters which included Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research Productivity, Impact and IPR (RPII), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI), Graduation Outcome (GO) and Perception (PR).
In the university category, SOA University ranks 20th and KIIT has bagged 49th rank. Last year, SOA had ranked 16 and KIIT got 53rd spot.
Similarly, in the Engineering institutions category, four institutes which were ranked in the top 100 are NIT-R (12th rank), IIT-Bhubaneswar (18), KIIT (47) and CV Raman Institute of Engineering (92). In management category, KIIT and Xavier University notched up top ranks among the top 50 B-schools of the country. Ranks of IIT-Bhubaneswar and NIT-Rourkela, which operate under the MHRD, have improved this year. Last year, NIT-Rourkela had secured an overall national ranking of 19 and it was 26 in case of IIT-Bhubaneswar, one of the young IITs in the country.
Of 16 National Institutes of Technology across India that took part in the survey, NIT-R has secured second rank among them with NIT-Tiruchirappalli leading the list. NIT-Rourkela Director, Prof Animesh Biswas said focus on academics and research in the last one year helped the institute climb up the ladder. Compared to 17 IITs across the country, IIT-Bhubaneswar scored big in the engineering segment securing the 10th position. IIT-Bhubaneswar Director, Prof Raja Kumar said the institution is working towards improving productivity amongst the faculty and in the learning levels of students.
While Baripada-based Seemanta Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences had found place in the Top-50 pharmacy institutes list last year, none of the pharmacy institutes of the State figured in the list this time.
wake up call for edu dept
Bhubaneswar: The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) is a wake up call for Odisha’s Higher Education Department. The ranking has exposed the lapses in academic functioning of Government-run universities which have failed to find a place in the list of top 100 universities. Although the Ministry had sought participation of all institutions accredited by University Grants Commission (UGC), only four universities took part in the NIRF which aims at ranking higher education institutions across the country based on several parameters. The four were Berhampur University, Fakir Mohan University, Rama Devi Women’s University and Utkal University. While Utkal and Fakir Mohan universities figure in the top-150 rank band, the remaining two are in the top-200 band. The UGC had sought information on faculty strength, campus placements, inclusiveness and research among other things. Apparently, all the institutions have valid NAAC grades and recently saw filling up of vacant faculty positions. However, science laboratories in all the universities have not been refurbished. The other universities like North Odisha, Sambalpur and Ravenshaw chose to stay away from the survey. The Central University of Odisha, that operates under the MHRD, also took part in the survey and has been placed in the top-200 list. Last year, none of the Government-run universities had taken part due to time constraint. This year, the survey saw participation of 15 institutions including the four Government universities. Ironically, the survey saw a greater participation from neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Higher Education Minister, Pradeep Panigrahy said steps are being taken by the department to improve the academic quality of the varsities. Teaching positions in the universities have been filled up to a certain extent and remaining vacancies will be filled up soon, he said, adding that focus is now on Utkal University of Culture, Fakir Mohan University an North Orissa University.
