Mixed bag for Prayagraj institutions
PRAYAGRAJ : Prominent technical and higher educational institutions of Prayagraj had a mixed bag of results in terms of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings-2023 released by Union minister of state for education and external affairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singh in the national capital on Monday.
Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad, failed to bag an overall rank which is limited to just 100 top institutions of all streams.
In 2021, it had bagged 88th rank, an improvement of five places as compared to 2020 when it had got an overall rank of 93. In 2019 also, it had failed to secure an overall rank.
However, among engineering colleges, the institute managed to bag a place in top 50 for the fifth time with 49th rank this year. But this was still a slip of two places as in 2022 it had bagged 47th rank while 2021 it had bagged 42nd rank against 48th place in 2020.
The Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, (IIIT-A) which does not participate in the overall rank category, bagged 89th rank among engineering colleges as compared to 97th rank it had got in 2022.
However, this was slightly lower than 87th rank it had bagged in 2021. In 2020, it had bagged 103rd rank among engineering colleges while in 2019 it was placed at 82nd .
Likewise, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), Prayagraj, bagged 70th among the top 100 colleges offering courses in pharmacy. In 2022, it had got 79th rank while in 2020 it had bagged 56th rank.
No other institution in Prayagraj managed to bag an NIRF ranking. Allahabad University (AU) failed to make a place for itself in the list of top 200 institutions of the country for the fifth time.
Top-200 institutions are awarded ranks or rank bands based on their performance and infrastructure. The central university also could not make a place for itself among the country’s top 100 universities.
Vice chancellor of Allahabad University Prof Sangita Srivastava said despite best efforts, the university could not perform well enough to bag a place in NIRF rankings-2023. Prof Srivastava said she was confident of bagging a good rank next year.
“We are doing our best to get over the shortcomings which hamper the efforts to improve the rankings. Our performance suffered mainly owing to the poor teacher-taught ratio. We are in the midst of the process of teachers’ recruitment. More than 300 teachers have been appointed in the past 15 months and interviews for selections of others are also underway. Along with the recruitment of the non-teaching staff more than 600 appointments have been made, she said.
The VC said a number of steps had been initiated to improve the academic and research facilities on the campus. “The infrastructure development combined with a better teacher taught ratio will help improve our ranking. I am sure that with the support of students, teachers and nonteaching staff, we will get a good ranking in 2024,” she added.