Top Delhi colleges refuse to provide details on faculty
NEWDELHI: Two of Delhi’s top colleges, St Stephen’s and Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, have refused to part with information regarding their faculty, a mandatory parameter to assess the performance of colleges in the national ranking system.
The National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF) will be announced in April this year by the government. Apart from an overall list of top institutes, a separate list for colleges will be published too. The LSR College ranked sixth and St Stephen’s did not participate in 2017 ranking.
After that ranking was released, St Stephen’s, Hindu College, Sri Venkateswara College, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) decided they would apply for the 2018 ranking and submitted application forms to the effect. It now emerges that St Stephen’s and LSR College may not figure in the rankings — at least not until they share information on their faculty.
Hindustan Times learns that the faculty of both the colleges is not keen on sharing their data.
“All entries are scrutinised and evaluated. We have not received data from these two and some other institutes which makes them ineligible for participating in the ranking. We are still giving them a chance and if they do share the faculty related data we are willing to include them. But so far we haven’t got a positive response,” said a senior official from the human resource development (HRD) ministry who asked not to be identified.
A total of 4,734 institutes are participating in the exercise this year, 1,525 more than last year.
Rankings are given in eight categories: overall, engineering, management, architecture, law, medical, pharmacy, and general colleges.
The principals of both St Stephen’s and the LSR College didn’t respond to calls and text messages seeking comment.
The ministry prepares the list based on a range of parameters such as teaching and learning resources, quality of research, and outcomes that judge the employability of graduates. The last date to register for the NIRF was October 6 last year.
Former Delhi University Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh said that most of the information related to the faculty is available in the public domain and can be accessed under the Right to Information Act. “Why should the faculty be reluctant in sharing such details?” asked Singh.
The ministry official said the ranking system is different from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council’s (NAAC) exercise that assesses and accredits institutes of higher education. “We are giving a ranking to an institute. Also, this is done every year whereas accreditation is done in five years,” he said.
Miranda House of New Delhi and Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science were India’s best college and university, respectively, in the 2017 rankings. Loyola College (Chennai) and Shri Ram College (New Delhi) were second and third on the ministry’s “general degree” colleges list.