Mumbai university not among India’s top 150 institutes

University of Mumbai’s debut in the Centre’s overall ranking of universities and management, medical and technical institutes was not a flattering one. It was ranked between 151 and 200.

University of Mumbai’s debut in the Centre’s overall ranking of universities and management, medical and technical institutes was not a flattering one. It was ranked between 151 and 200.

It was ranked between 151 and 200. (HT)

Union human resources development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar released the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) — the second so far — on Monday. It has thrown quite a few surprises for the city and the state.

The rankings were divided into five categories: colleges, universities, pharmacy, engineering, management and overall.

In the overall ranking category, Savitribai Phule Pune University clocked the 18th (10th among universities) and was the only state university to be featured in the top 20. Ranks were given only for the top 100 institutes.

Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) poled third position in the overall listing, after Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.

“This is excellent news. It is very encouraging and rewarding to the staff and students of the institute,” said Devang Khakkar, director of IIT-B. Top institutes will receive certificates form the President in Delhi next week.

In the list of top 50 colleges in the country, Pune’s Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Information Technology and Biotechnology (30) was the highest ranked college in the state, followed by Pune’s Fergusson College (35), Amravati’s Degree College of Physical Education (36), Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College (40).

The methodology to evaluate and rank universities and institutes included teaching and learning resources, research work, graduation outcome, outreach, inclusivity and perception. The first the NIRF ranking was released last April. The NIRF was launched in September 2015.

The Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, which had bagged the second position among universities in 2016, was pushed to the 25th rank this time. Many institutes, including the Homi Bhabha National Institute, which went form 17th rank in 2016 to 21st rank in 2017, blamed it on the increase in the number of institutes participating in the rankings. Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) showed up on the 49th rank while Bharati Vidyapeeth University in Mumbai and Symbiosis International University from Pune were relegated to the 90th and the 97th in the overall chart.

Top Mumbai university officials were disappointed with the results. While vice-chancellor Sanjay Deshmukh was unavailable for comments, other officials were equally reluctant to give reasons for the dismal performance. A senior official, however, told HT that the reason for the university’s poor ranks could be because they had not filed or published a single patent in 2016 and the number of research scholars had been declining in the past three years.

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