Higher educational institutions in Tamil Nadu await NIRF rankings today

CHENNAI: Higher educational institutions in the state are eagerly awaiting the third edition of the national rankings which is scheduled to be released by Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on Tuesday. Over 4,000 institutions have applied with the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2018 in nine different categories this year.

Apart from overall ranking of the institutions, the ranking will be awarded in eight different categories including universities, engineering colleges, medical, pharmacy, and architecture and law colleges. Using the same broad parameters, NIRF has added several new criteria such as total budget and its utilization, combined metric for quality of publications, university examinations and  how many graduating students admitted into top institutions.

“We expect an improved ranking this year as our university performed better in three parameters including teaching and learning and research. Enrolment of students also improved this year by 25 per cent in many our university departments,” said P. Duraisamy, Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras. The university has got 41st rank in the universities category last year.

“With more number of institutions joining the ranking process we are expecting tough competition this year,” he added.

Officials from Anna University are hopeful they could secure a top rank in one of the categories. “We have applied in five categories - overall category, universities, engineering, architecture and management. The research output is better compared to last year,” they said. Last year Anna University was ranked as the 6th best university and 8th best engineering institution in the country. 

In the engineering category, IIT Madras got the top rank in two consecutive years. It is likely to continue this year as well. Totally, 37 colleges from the state were ranked among the top 100 colleges. Loyola college secured 2nd rank in the colleges’ category.