BHUBANESWAR: For the ninth time in a row, none of the colleges in the state could find a spot in the Ministry of Education’s National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF) that was released recently by Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
This year, 3,371 colleges across the country took part in the NIRF. Of them, 14 were from Odisha and these included popular institutions like BJB College, Maharshi College of Natural Law, Prananath College, SCS College and Kendrapara College. The Ministry of Education ranked all the colleges in the 1 to 300 band but none from the state could score adequately to secure a rank.
Evaluation of colleges for NIRF ranking was started by the ministry in 2022 and till this year, only 31 colleges from the state have participated in it. There are 1,058 degree colleges in the state. The NIRF identifies broad parameters of teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity, and public perception for ranking the institutions.
Academicians said while teaching-learning is an important parameter that the colleges have been missing out on, the institutional ranking weighs heavily on research and innovation. Close to 35 per cent of the total marks are devoted to research and a very small number of colleges in the state currently have limited research activities.
“In fact, in the case of colleges of Odisha, research output is negligible. Only recently, students and young faculty members of colleges have started working on research projects under the Mukhyamantri Research Fellowship Programme. The output of this will be visible only after three years,” said an official of the Odisha State Higher Education Council (OSHEC).
Another factor, they said, is the college expenditure on students. Sources said while in popular colleges in other states, expenditure per student is close to `80,000, only a few bigger colleges in Odisha spend around `30,000 to `50,000 on this head. Colleges have also scored low in public perception of the institutions category which constitutes 10 per cent of the total marks.
Former vice-chairperson of Odisha State Higher Education Council Ashok Das said while it is a welcome move that colleges have started participating in NIRF, he suggested that they would need to come up with a long-term plan to prepare for such national-level rankings.
“They could work out a three-year or five-year plan to improve their research output for facing rankings like NIRF,” he said.