Shocked by poor ranking in NIFR, M S University starts analysis, introspection

VADODARA: A day after it failed to figure even in the list of top 200 universities in the country, M S University officials got busy studying the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) report which was released by the union ministry of human resource development on Tuesday.
Shockwaves have run through the Gujarat’s only English medium university as it neither made it to the top 100 universities of the country nor found a mention in the rank bands of 101-150 and 151-200 which displays the list of participating institutes in the alphabetical order.

There are nine universities from Gujarat which have made it in the top 200 list in the overall rankings and 12 which have made it to the top 200 list in the universities rankings. While MSU was ranked at 76th position in 2016 when MHRD had released the rankings for the first time in the country, in 2017 its rank had slide in the rank band of 151-200 institutes.

“We are preparing a detailed analysis which we will share with the comparative picture with members of the syndicate,” said Parimal Vyas, MSU vice-chancellor.

“We believe that one of the major reason behind the poor ranking is the fact that we submitted all the details regarding our undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses with full transparency,” he said.

“When you consider the strength of temporary teachers in the university and take into account both the UG and PG students studying in the campus, the student: teacher ratio, the PhD enrolment figures do come down,” he said, adding that the university did not manipulate data to score points over other educational institutes.

A couple of officials at the university believe that a major grey area when it comes to NIRF ranking is also the fact that there is no physical verification of the data that is uploaded by the individual institutes.

Meanwhile, the university officials have started facing brickbats for its poor show in the national rankings. While a group from the National Students Union of India (NSUI) reached the university head office to make a representation against the poor performance, sources suggest that a group of senate members are also planning to demand for a requisite senate meeting to discuss the outcome of the NIRF report.