Opinion Bibek Debroy on NIRF rankings: Why Delhi and Tamil Nadu colleges lead the way

The 2023 rankings have recently been announced. To quote, “the ranking exercise for the year 2023 continues with the practice of providing a common ‘overall’ rank in addition to a separate rank for universities, research institutions, degree colleges, and discipline-specific ranks in engineering, management, pharmacy, law, medical, dental and architecture and planning. Agriculture and allied sectors and innovation are two verticals added to the ranking exercise from 2023 onward.” That sounds complicated. But since there are different types of HEI, some complication is inevitable. In the list of best-100 colleges, Miranda College in Delhi University tops the list, followed by Hindu College in the same university. Both are old colleges. Miranda was established in 1948, and Hindu in 1899. The three constituent colleges that came together to establish Delhi University in 1922 were St. Stephen’s, Hindu and Ramjas. Decades ago, say in the 1970s, when there was no NIRF ranking, Miranda and Hindu would still have been counted amongst the best, though not necessarily first and second. But take something like PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, in Coimbatore. In the 2023 ranking of colleges, it is fourth. This college was established in 1963, and certainly in the 1970s, no one would have mentioned it in the same breath as Miranda and Hindu. The point is simple. A hoary tradition is no guarantee of success. As in every sphere of economic activity, new entrants challenge the old order.

What’s the worst college? We don’t know. The All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) tells us 24.5 per cent of colleges have enrollment less than 100 and 48.5 per cent have enrollment between 100 to 500. To be part of the NIRF, there must be enrollment of at least 1000 (there is an exception for the Union government-funded HEIs). Hence, a huge chunk of colleges wasn’t part of the ranking. To state it impolitely, they aren’t worthy of being ranked. If I have understood it right, 1,288 colleges were worthy of being ranked and NIRF has reported the top 100. Therefore, we don’t know the worst among all colleges. We don’t know the worst among 1,288. We only know the worst among the 100.

The worst of this lot is Scottish Church College, in Kolkata. It has around 2,000 students in undergraduate programmes and around 200 in post-graduate programmes. For the undergraduate, the annual intake is 765. But in the last year for which we have data, 56 per cent graduated. The rest dropped out. Among those who graduated, 7.3 per cent were placed. (The ratio is almost the same for post-graduate and median salaries are lower for post-graduate than under-graduate.) Those unfamiliar with Kolkata and its history may not know that Scottish Church College’s antecedents, as the General Assembly’s Institution, go back to 1830. The alumni (and faculty) list is impressive and includes Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, Manna Dey and Nirad C Chaudhuri (not to speak of the fictional Professor Shonku and Feluda). There are many more illustrious names in that list. All this establishes is that Scottish Church College has a proud legacy. That’s no guarantee of a proud present.

In that list of top 100 colleges, there is a clear concentration in Delhi and Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Coimbatore). In other spheres of economic activity, people talk of clusters and there are positive externalities associated with such concentration. There is no reason why higher education shouldn’t exhibit similar traits. There is a famous shloka in Sanskrit. A disciple (shishya) learns one-fourth from the teacher (acharya), one-fourth through his/her own efforts, one-fourth from fellow students (brahmacharis) and one-fourth in the course of time. This is mistakenly attributed to Udyoga Parva of Mahabharata. It is not quite from the Mahabharata but from Nilakantha’s commentary on Mahabharata.

With urbanisation picking up, why should inclusion be interpreted as establishing colleges in rural areas? Shouldn’t inclusion be interpreted as ensuring access for students in centres of higher education that have positive externalities, with the geographical centre not interpreted as an individual HEI alone, but as a cluster of those? That’s probably what’s happening in and around Delhi and Tamil Nadu. As things stand, 61.4 per cent of colleges are in rural areas, not integrated into the education mainstream, 78.09 per cent of students are in undergraduate courses, with one-third in arts. They are not integrated into the economic mainstream and we complain about both unemployment and lack of skills, despite an increase in enrollment in higher education.

The writer is chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.

Views are personal

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