Context:

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings (WUR) 2025 have raised serious questions about the credibility and objectivity of ranking Indian institutions.

Details

The World University Rankings 2024 examined more than 2,000 institutions from 115 countries and regions. The methodology evaluates performance in five key areas:

Teaching (learning environment)
Research (volume, income, and reputation)
Research quality
International outlook (staff, students, and research)
Industry (knowledge transfer)

The first three categories each have a weight of almost 30%, while the fourth and fifth categories contribute 7.5% and 4%, respectively.

Concern Raised

Question on method of the research

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, India's leading top research institution for decades was ranked between 251-300 worldwide, a drop of about 50 spots as compared to last year.

Private regional institutions such as Mahatma Gandhi University, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, and Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences were ranked as the third-highest Indian universities.
This raises concerns about the rankings' methodology and fairness.

Arbitrary Ranking System

Many Indian leading institutions, including IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, and IIT Bombay boycotted the rankings by raising concerns over lack of transparency and fairness of the evaluation processes, which they believe may result in biased and arbitrary rankings.

Illusion of ranking

Ranking creates the illusion of providing a far superior education to potential learners. Students dependent on these rankings to make choices about their educational future may be misled through the ranking as it can divert them from quality education and potentially harm their academic and professional future.

Focus on quantity, not quality of research

The rating parameters are easily manipulated. The term 'manipulation' does not mean manipulating research evaluations, which would be difficult because they depend on data provided by institutions. The institutions indirectly affect these standards by encouraging the printing of research papers of any quality, to increase their numbers of paper for better ranking.

To increase the number of an institute's publications, some researchers have purchased authorships from paper mills. Researchers are under fear of resigning or being fired if they do not publish a particular number of publications every year.

Significance of University Ranking Framework

Boost Global image

High university rankings significantly increase a university's global status. The recognition helps in attracting international students, faculty, donors, and possible research partners from all over the world.

Promoting Cooperation

Higher rankings help in promoting cooperation between colleges, as institutions frequently seek collaboration with those with good reputations, which helps in increasing the number of collaborative research initiatives and exchange programs across universities.

Boost Performance

The university ranking structure provides useful information about the performance, this information helps institutions in recognising their strengths and shortcomings, which guide them in making strategic planning and resource allocation to boost their performance.

Opportunity for students

Joining a highly ranked university offers significant opportunities to students to connect with other students, teachers and industry leaders, which is helpful for students who are seeking internships or career placements after they graduate.

Overall improvement

The competitive nature of university rankings motivates universities to improve their educational and research output. The constant search for improvement results in more effective academic programs and student outcomes.

Way Forward

The ranking publishing organization needs to improve transparency in their evaluation process by including only verified data from authentic sources to maintain the report accuracy. A comprehensive review for the ranking is necessary to ensure a more accurate representation of institutional performance.

Increasing communication with universities and stakeholders, and personalized visits to institutions can help the organization to link survey and evaluation with ground realities, which will help in reforming the ranking process and also ensure the authenticity of the Survey.

The current metrics-driven system compromise the goal of education by turning information into a commodity and students into clients. Universities must train students to be responsible citizens and to face real-world difficulties.

Universities must adopt a culture that values both research and teaching equally. The research should be rewarded based on its social effect rather than just journal rankings. Universities must combine research and teaching. While research is essential for innovation, it should not be at the expense of education.

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