DNA Edit: Higher education - There are no additions to a star-studded list of institutes

The fourth edition of the Indian rankings based on the National Institutional Ranking Framework 2019, announced by President Ram Nath Kovind, is a reconfirmation about India’s top higher educational institutions, even as it does not add any new name to a star-studded list. IIT-Madras emerges as the top- ranked higher education institute, but it should surprise no one that eight of the top 10 engineering institutions are IITs. While Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, was declared the best university, Delhi University’s Miranda House emerged as the best college. AIIMS was not surprisingly India’s best medical college while NLSIU is ranked as the country’s best law school. The one relatively new entry is Jamia Hamdard, which emerged as the top varsity for Pharmacy. While the track record of such institutions is truly commendable, the bigger issue at stake is the absence of new names on the list. India’s developed islands of excellence such as IIT and IISc now produce about 15-20 per cent of faculty members of universities worldwide, which is good news.  However, according to the World Bank, while India has the third largest higher education structure in the world after the US and China, in terms of expenditure per student as well as per teacher, India falls way behind. In the last decade, access to higher education has improved as more IITs, IIMs and central- and state-level universities have been established. The trouble is that this proliferation has also raised concerns about an imbalance between excellence and inclusion. Having said that, India needs to welcome the National Institute Ranking Framework as steps in the right direction. Rankings increase the quality of education. Universities compete among themselves to rank higher as this begets them greater autonomy from regulation, and also more money. Some other reforms like semester systems and choice-based courses could also enhance academic performance and free students to explore their interests.