IIT-Madras tops list again, Miranda House best college
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is the best education institute in the country, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) the top university, and Miranda House the top-ranked college, according to the Union government’s National Institute Ranking Framework’s (NIRF) 2021 released by the education minister on Thursday.
The annual comparison judges applying colleges on five parameters: teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception. The government says the rankings are meant to encourage colleges and universities to improve, and experts expect these to influence admissions and graduate recruitments.
“A robust and a role model ranking framework will serve as India’s contribution to the global learning landscape. So, we must ensure that our ranking framework emerges as a benchmark not only in the country, but also globally, especially for developing economies. We should develop regional ranking frameworks,” said education and skill development minister Dharmendra
Pradhan.
The new National Education Policy (NEP), he added, will also provide an opportunity to internationalise India’s education system. “We must work collectively to bring more and more institutions under our rankings framework and also establish India as a preferred global study destination,” he said.
According to the list released on Thursday, this is the third time IIT Madras has topped the best institutions category in a row. In this category, IISc Bengaluru and IIT-Bombay were the runners up.
Seven IITs, including IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee, made it in the list of top 10 in the overall rankings category. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Uttar Pradesh were ranked
ninth and tenth in the overall rankings.
In all, there were 11 different categories -- overall, university, colleges, engineering, management, pharmacy, law, medical, architecture, dental and, newly added, research.
IISc Bengaluru topped the research category list followed by IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi.
IISc Bengaluru also topped the “university” category followed by JNU, BHU, and Calcutta University. Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi jumped from position 10 to position sixth and the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) also made it to the top ten.
Delhi University (DU) slipped by one position in the overall and university categories. Five of its colleges, however, figured in the top 10 list of colleges ranking category.
Miranda House topped the college ranking for the fifth time in a row followed by Lady Shri Ram College for Women (LSR). Chennai’s Loyola College, Kolkata’s St. Xavier’s College , and DU’s St Stephen’s College were the rest in the top five.
The engineering category was dominated by the IITs: the top eight included those in Madras, Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati and Hyderabad. The only others were National Institute of Technology (NIT) Tiruchirapalli and Suratkal -- ranked ninth and tenth in the category.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi was ranked atop the medical institutes category followed by PGIMER Chandigarh and Christian Medical College, Vellore. Like last year, Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta retained the top three ranks among the B-Schools. The National Law School of India University, Bangalore, retained its first position in “law category” for the fourth consecutive year.
According to a statement issued by the ministry, the number of institutions participating in the overall rankings increased from 2,426 in 2016 to 4,030 in 2021. The total number of applications for ranking in various categories also increased: from 3,565 in 2016, to 6,272 in 2021.
“We are delighted to maintain our pre-eminent position in the NIRF rankings yet again. IIT Madras continues to excel in teaching, research, and innovation, and has launched several new initiatives to implement the NEP,” IIT-Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said. The vice-chancellors of JNU, BHU and Jamia congratulated their students and faculty members for making it to the list of top 10 universities.
“Even during the Covid19 pandemic, we made sure that teaching and research is not hampered and for that we put in place all the necessary arrangements. We are working hard in order to take the university to the top 500 institutions of the world,” said BHU V-C VK Shukla.