PUDUCHERRY: Former Lok Sabha member M Ramadass on Wednesday urged the lieutenant governor, chief minister and education minister of Puducherry to introspect on the distressing fact that only one of the institutions in the UT found place in the list of top 100 institutions of the country in the overall National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) published by the Union Ministry of Education.
Ramadass, the former Dean of Pondicherry University, stated this as a wake up call to reform higher education in the UT.In the total 11 categories of institutions, only JIPMER is in the list of 100 top institutions by occupying 39th rank with a score of 55.41. In the university category, Pondicherry University secured 141st rank, slipping from 68th rank in 2022. The university authorities have to make a soul searching analysis of this deteriorating ranking, he said.
In the category of engineering colleges, none from UT found a place among the top 100. NIT Karaikal ranks 128 while Pondicherry Engineering College slipped to 184 from 150 in 2022.The position of Mahatma Gandhi Government Arts College in Mahe has deteriorated from 99 in 2022 to 126 this year. No other college has a place even among the top 200. This data implies that the arts and science colleges of the UT are in a weak spot and they need radical restructuring in teaching and learning. No institution in the category of dental, management and research of Puducherry could make it to the list. However, the ranking of Kanchi Mamunivar Institute for Post Graduate Studies and Research improved to 50 from 80.
In the category of medical colleges, JIPMER moved one rank up to bag the fifth spot, while Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research in the private sector has retained its 47th rank.
The Government should consider to appoint motivated teachers, strengthen infrastructure in colleges, solve long pending problems of teachers, introduce courses with a right mix of liberal and skill based knowledge, and establish internal quality cells in every college. Additionally, introduce a system of students assessing teachers, and promote new technologies in teaching and learning. This can certainly enhance the ranking of all institutions, he said.