MHRD National Institutional Ranking Framework 2016 Results Looks Rigged

It’s a great news that MHRD took initiative to create a framework for ranking engineering colleges in India. I am totally curious about ranking methodologies as I am extremely lucky to have a chance to work with India’s top guns on stats. I also had an opportunity to see how a statistical framework can be developed to analyze the data.

When it comes to framework I see few important parameters are missing completely like Student Quality joining the institute and competitiveness of the entrance exam. Faculty Quality and new faculty preference was also ignored. Faculty to student ratio is a good parameter but it cannot be idealized in India because of our intakes are forced by government (for IITs and NITs) private colleges have their own way of managing faculty. These factors are most important when it comes to placements in world class companies. Moreover, IITs see almost 100 percent placements I doubt about the placements in the top institutes ranked by this framework.

The most surprising entry which actually made me challenge who MHRD NIRF ranking is VIT (may be you don’t know it is called Vellore Institute of Technology) at 13th place well above few new IITs and NITs and even BITS. Many private colleges are well above NIT Warangal, which is placed at 28th place. I think one few of the most important parameters are ignored and I am really not sure about the accuracy of data being collected. I visited these universities and tried to compare faculty there was actually no match between IIT, NIT faculty and the people teaching in these private schools.

After analyzing GATE as well as JOSAA cutoffs having collected all faculty information for month form IITs and NITs I feel that if students have to choose they still have to go from IITs and NITs. Beyond a single doubt IITB is best among IITs for now and NIT Warangal is top second NIT in the country. For ranking based on Student Quality and faculty Quality. Have a look at IIT Ranking 2015 and NIT Ranking 2015 for more details.
Another important point missed when it comes to student teacher ratio. How a bunch more teachers with not even a PhD can be compared with Highly qualified teachers teaching a bit higher number of brightest possible students. Have a look at the colleges ranked above IITs and NITs in the below list for complete list check MHRD NIRF ranking.

Rank	Institute	City	State	Score
1	Indian Institute of Technology, Madras	Chennai	Tamil Nadu	89.41
2	Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay	Bombay	Maharashtra	87.66
3	Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur	Kharagpur	West Bengal	83.91
4	Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi	New Delhi	Delhi	82.02
5	Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur	Kanpur	Uttar Pradesh	81.07
6	Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee	Roorkee	Uttarakhand	78.68
7	Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad	Hyderabad	Telangana	77.22
8	Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar	Ahmedabad	Gujarat	75.2
9	Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar-Rupnagar	Rupnagar	Punjab	74.88
10	Indian Institute of Technology, Patna	Patna	Bihar	74.68
11	Indian Institute of Technology, North Guwahati	Guwahati	Assam	74.62
12	National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli	Tiruchirappalli	Tamil Nadu	74.45
13	Vellore Institute of Technology	Vellore	Tamil Nadu	74.4
14	Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi	Varanasi	Uttar Pradesh	74.39
15	Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology	Surat	Gujarat	73.13
16	Indian Institute of Technology, Indore	Indore	Madhya Pradesh	72
17	Birla Institute of Technology	Ranchi	Jharkhand	71.8
18	Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (Deemed University)-Nagpur	Nagpur	Maharashtra	71.29
19	National Institute of Technology, Rourkela-Rourkela	Rourkela	Odisha	70.8
20	Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi	Mandi	Himachal Pradesh	70.32
21	College of Engineering, Pune	Pune	Maharashtra	69.71
22	National Institute of Technology, Karnataka-Mangalore	Mangalore	Karnataka	68.95
23	Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology	Allahabad	Uttar Pradesh	67.94
24	Psg College of Technology-Coimbatore	Coimbatore	Tamil Nadu	67.8
25	Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur	Jodhpur	Rajasthan	67.68
26	Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar	Bhubaneswar	Odisha	67.58
27	Thapar University-Patiala	Patiala	Punjab	67.51
28	National Institute of Technology, Warangal	Warangal	Telangana	67.12
29	Thiagarajar College of Engineering-Madurai	Madhurai	Tamil Nadu	66.51
30	National Institute of Technology, Durgapur	Durgapur	West Bengal	65.4
31	Amrita School of Engineering	Karunagapalli	Kerala	63.94
32	Kalinga Institue of Industrial Technology	Bhubaneswar	Odisha	63.4
33	M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology-Bangalore	Bangalore	Karnataka	63.39
34	Coimbatore Institute of Technology-Coimbatore	Coimbatore	Tamil Nadu	62.58
35	R.V. College of Engineering-Bengaluru	Bangalore	Karnataka	62.26
35	National Institute of Technology, Calicut	Calicut	Kerala	62.26

The whole ranking looks like either based on a wrong data sets and biased or done by India Today, or Out Look or Data Quest team, who usually rank colleges based on some parameter which no one understands. I don’t see any sensible student or parent would follow this ranking for their admissions. Overall, MHRD National Institutional Ranking Framework 2016 results Looks rigged and beyond acceptance to be followed or used.

I think a better approach to rank Engineering institutes in India based on Student and teach Quality, which eventually result in top researchers, entrepreneur, and great placements.

I am sending a request to MHRD for more details and data to try rebuild this ranking and see if they really are worth looking at or just a publicity stunt usually done by magazines and news papers for higher sales a year.

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