In Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari suggests that data may become the new religion of human consciousness. The author states that it might eradicate the unpredictability of human existence, while simultaneously enslaving us to an imagination where everything is fixated on digits.
This pull towards quantification is already leading us to the fatal addiction of finding ‘credibility’ in numbers alone – not to mention being fooled by them. The realm of education is increasingly falling victim to this. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is proof.
Lamenting the lack of Indian names in global university rankings, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry launched the NIRF in 2015. The framework outlined a methodology to rank institutions across the country and promised annual rankings for colleges and universities. The third edition of these rankings was released on 3 April.
Institutional rankings are the apex of blind faith when it comes to statistics. Even if I delay my critique of unenlightened attempts to rank educational spaces, I invite you to laugh at the ranking list presented by the HRD Ministry. Here is the criteria this ranking is based on:
1) Teaching, Learning & Resource
Here we get the first glimpse of double stupidity. In order to arrive at a numerical value about learning at the institutions, the framework gets lazy and refuses to devise any organic tool to measure how well the teachers are teaching or how well the students are learning.
It naively uses available crude statics of student strength, student-faculty ratio, number of faculties with PhDs, and the total budget of the institution to make sweeping statements.
Of course, all of the above may influence the quality of teaching at the institution, but it is despicable to hold them as reliable indicators of deciding which institution deserves to be called superior.
2) Research and Professional Practice
The next parameter is a globally contested one – Research and Professional Practice. The inclusion of the number of publications and citations are baby steps towards the infamous problem of western universities — the demise of teaching. Experts are beginning to remind the world that the primary purpose of a university is to help students learn; research is only secondary. But when excessive impetus begins to be placed on papers and journals, the process of classroom learning is largely neglected.
Anyway, the rankings of even this matrix should also tickle you a bit.
Take for instance the College rankings, Research and Professional Practice Score (out of 100) of Presidency College Chennai scored 99.27, while that of Miranda House and St. Stephen stands at 29.78 and 16.36, respectively.
If you aren’t already smiling already, then consider the fact that RPP score of JNU (42.60) is actually lower than that of BHU (50.76), Anna University (60.76), University of Hyderabad (45.34), Jadavpur University (57.07) and even Manipal Academy of Higher Education (44.15).
Does this imply that JNU scholars produce research that is inferior to Manipal Academy? The author leaves it to your wise judgement.
3) A Criteria Called Perception
If you are wondering how this mathematics works, then don’t be surprised how there’s actually a criterion called ‘perception’.
It is said to be based on online surveys to understand what perception employers, academia and public have of an institution.
No, you are wrong if you think this is a perpetuation of the elite club that accepts only the brightest of the bright. The scores on this matrix are amusing and are seemingly prepared by a man of Dravidian origins.
- Miranda House - 68.02
- St Stephen’s - 60.75
- Bishop Heber College - 70.94
- Hindu College - 47.90
- Loyola College - 100
- Lady Shri Ram College for Women - 66.99
- Madra Christian College - 75.57
- PSG College of Arts and Science - 82.40
- St Joseph’s College - 67.41
- Stella Maris College for Women - 57.76
(In the order of non-consecutive but descending ranks. Score out of 100)
If you were to believe the rankings, you have mostly spent your life living in a bubble. If you tried to score admission in one of the North Campus biggies by struggling for a 99 percent, you have been miserably fooled. The gold is in the South.
Similarly for the ranking of Universities, while the technology-tilted institutes have fairly consistent Perception Scores (PS), the outliers of liberal art universities seem to have been shown a mirror.
While the top-ranked Indian Institute of Science has PS of 100, JNU has an abysmal score of 46.28, much lower than those ranked below it.
Banaras Hindu University has higher PS score than Delhi University – 43.62 compared to 33.15. And the leader among them is the underdog Anna University, with 63.22.
4) Graduation Outcome Score
The Graduation Outcome matrix is meant to indicate how well-placed the alumni of the ranked institutions are.
But this too displays odd trends. The Graduation Outcome Score (GOS) of Calcutta University (86.81), ranked #21, is higher than Delhi University (85.14), which is ranked #14. In fact, the GOS of BHU, 95.42, is the closest to JNU’s 99.12, with Jadavpur at a close third with 91.39.
And according to the college ranking table, you are likely to find better opportunities if you graduate from Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Howrah (GO score of 86.08) than the Lady Shri Ram College for Women (GOS 81.94), or even SRCC ( GOS 83.48).
Well, there are some other important learnings from the data submitted for framework. Take for instance the ridiculously low number of women in all the high-ranked institutions.
IIS Bengaluru has only 32 women faculty members with PhD, out of the total strength of 430. IIT Madras and Bombay have only 78 and 87 women with the qualification, out of nearly 600 teachers.
The purpose of pointing out these flaws in the ranking framework isn't to better it, but to abolish it. Rankings of educational spaces are bound to display such impractical results. Yet, they threaten to create a self-serving ecosystem of believers.
Rankings and graphical pie charts are the language of illiterate bureaucrats who understand almost nothing about the process of learning.
It is becoming the favourite trick of our leaders who are ‘performance-oriented,’ and want nothing less than numerical estimates for manufacturing glossy posters and slogans.
In this cliché exercise of dumbed down imagination, educational spaces are turned into homogeneous monoliths that can be ranked like any other product of the modern economy. The love for rankings will probably only multiply in a consumerist society. Our lust for hollow validation through the rigged and meaningless ranking lists of the West is already starting to rob us of our creative thinking. We are choosing to be less confident of our greatest strengths.
Perhaps the most saddening observation of all is to find the name of Visva Bharti in the list of ‘competitors.’
Instead of advancing an alternative vision of the world and arguing for recognition of diversity that cannot be counted, it, like most others, is lining up with a begging bowl.
Our institutions lost the race the day they decided to run it.
(Akshat Tyagi is the author of ‘Naked Emperor of Education’. He tweets at @AshAkshat. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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