Measuring the Performance of Higher Education Institutions in India: A Bird’s Eye view of the National Institutional Ranking Framework

Abstract

There has been a significant upsurge in the number of higher education institutions in India. Presently there are 993 higher education institutions in India, including universities, IIT’s, IIM’s, IIIT’s, IISER’s, and a set of institutes of national importance. However, there was no formal process in India to measure the impact or performance of these higher education institutions. This paper gives a bird’s eye view of the national institutional ranking framework (NIRF)—a recent initiative taken by the Government of India. The NIRF is a formal process to rank the higher education institutions in India after analyzing their performance basing on five parameters—teaching, learning, and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and peer perception. We have collected the NIRF ranking data of three consecutive years (2017, 2018, and 2019) and found that 27 institutions have appeared in all these three years. We have computed panel regressions (fixed effects and random effects models) to examine the determinants of the overall ranking score obtained by these 27 institutions and applied the Hausman test to choose an appropriate model. The Hausman test statistic not being significant, we accept the random effect model as the final model. The results of the random effects panel model indicate that three parameters—teaching, learning, and resources; research and professional practice; and graduation outcomes—determine the total score and ranking. The advantages and shortcomings of the NIRF ranking system are discussed along with recommendations.