Are Indian higher education institutes gaming the ranking system?
Concerns continue to be raised about students being misled by the Indian government’s flagship scheme
Following the release of the long-awaited ninth ranking of higher education institutes (HEI) in India in August, concerns have been raised about the reliability of the government framework. This comes after research policy watchers highlighted inconsistencies and institutions playing the system to rise up the rankings. HEIs that game the system often creates the illusion of offering a far better education to prospective students than they can truly deliver.
Global rankings of HEIs, such as the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Ranking, have been around many years, but don’t specialise in Indian HEIs . This led to the creation of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for HEIs – that rates more than 10,000 institutions – by the Indian government in 2015, with the objective of developing a robust and data-driven ranking to evaluate Indian institutions.