Like every year since 2016, the NIRF 2019 ranking for best institutions across various disciplines has been declared by MHRD. The rankings are based on several parameters including teaching and learning resources, research and professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity and perception. It is the most talked about thing in the academia now. Everyone in the institute, starting from directors to faculty members, students, prospective students and their parents, alumni, employer etc. are talking about it. With the JEE Mains and the Jee Advanced over, this is the right time when ranking is instrumental in helping students in decision making for admissions into different engineering colleges. Undoubtedly, the five oldest IITs has been ruling the roost with IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur interchanging their places for the position in second, third and fourth. However the fact that can’t be overlooked is that IIT Madras has withhold its numero uno position for the fourth time. It is also to be noted that IIT Madras is not only first in the overall ranking of institutes of higher education but also first in the first time ever introduced Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA). Along with many indicators such as budget, facilities, entrepreneurship, awareness, commercialization, learning methods and governance, the focus will also be on the quality of innovations and will try to measure the real impact created by these innovations nationally and internationally. Inspite of the controversies such as separate eating spaces for vegetarians and non-vegetarian students in the canteen, disagreement over beef eating, caste bias amongst student and faculty numbers which made the sympathisers call it “Iyer Iyengar Technology (IIT)”, student suicide and the politics of language in Tamil Nadu, IIT Madras could beat all the odds to top the NIRF and ARIIA list.
What could be the reasons for IIT Madras to retain this position since last four years? Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras had said, “The ranking is an affirmation of the consistent hard work of our faculty, staff and students and the zeal with which we are implementing and exceeding the targets of our Strategic Plan 2020. IIT Madras leads in research as well as industry collaboration anchored by its hugely successful Research Park,” and “Its students and scholars get placed in the best companies and research institutions worldwide. We will continue to forge ahead with the same energy to achieve ever greater heights,” he had added. This shows that their getting this accreditation is closely related to their Strategic Plan 2020. Interestingly, IIT Madras has been doing this exercise since 2010. They had previous Strategic Plan 2003-2010 followed by 2013 and finally 2014-2020 to their credit. IIT Madras seem to be pioneer among the institutes of higher education in India in planning for their future by developing long term plans for the development of the institute. IIT Bombay soon followed them in formulating their Strategic Plan 2017-2022 and IIT Delhi is also following suit with eminent people from both India and foreign academia and industry in their strategic plan committee. IIT Bombay had acknowledged the development of Strategic Plan 2017-2022 to be instrumental in their getting the Institution of Eminence (IoE) status from MHRD last year. This status aims to project Indian institutes to global recognition along with academic freedom and autonomy.
IIT Madras is lucky to have develop their Strategic Plan 2020 well in advance and also successful in implementing the same. The vision laid out by both IITM and IITB focuses themselves to be recognised as global leader in research and education which will benefit the society and environment around us. Course programmes, research, engagement with industry, internationalisation and entrepreneurial activity are some of the key elements to support this vision. The research quality and quantity is taken care of through research intensity, faculty strength, Ph.D enrolment, engagement with industry and international collaborations. These have strengthened publications in good journals, establishing research centres of excellence, filing patent, producing graduates with high employer reputation, more industry oriented courses, funded research, new company incubation, commercialisation of research innovations, projects from ministries and an attempt to have a corpus with an ambitious endowment. This requirement for the above has encouraged many IITs to have a Research Park which has increased their sponsored research and help Indian companies to become globally competitive. Some of the IITs have plans to reach out to female students and motivate them to write JEE and join IITs. Enhanced placement of Ph. D students have helped in perception and visibility of the institute. Good faculty from all over the world could be attracted by improving on the salary and other benefits. While institutions are maintaining growth as planned, they are also considering on other aspects such as measuring students perceptions of their campus facilities and the economic and social impact of the institution.
NIRF has been adding new entrants to their list of categories every year since 2014. IITKGP need a special mention here as it has toped NIRF rank in four different categories i.e., Engineering, Law, Architecture, and Management. Its surprising that inspite of having specialised institutes in these areas, IITKGP could top in Architecture, fourth position in Law and sixth in Management, only after the five old IIMs. The credit goes to the interdisciplinary nature of the institute. It has the maximum categories amongst all the IITs. The start-up culture is yet to be developed in IITKGP but the development of Research ParK in Kolkata will soon enhance this. It has also focussed on thrust areas like Artificial Intelligence and Energy. Both IITKGP and IIT Kanpur has locational disadvantages, but with the right strategic plan they can go all the way to the top.
It time for other IITs and all educational institutes to have their plans in place to have a structured growth of their institutes, if not to be in the top rank. IIT Madras has been implementing and measuring the same parameters (teaching and learning resources, research and professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity and perception) that NIRF have framed in their Strategic Plan. If these plans are monitored and maintained periodically, then retaining this position is just as normal as it has been since last four years unless and until other institutes improve on the parameters and beat them.
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