The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar unveiled the ranking of higher educational institutes today on April 3, 2017 in a press conference. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) presented an overall and category wise ranking today. Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has topped the overall ranking. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad have been earmarked as the top ranked institutes in Engineering and Management section.

Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey Minister of State for HRD (Higher Education), while addressing the conference which was streamed live said, “The World Ranking parameters somehow don’t suit the Indian educational system and thus we have come up with the ranking system. This will provide a holistic overview of higher education. It will also bring transparency and help students to take admission in the coming years.”

In the press conference Javadekar pointed out that although there are accreditation agencies like the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) present in the country, there is no ranking framework in existence. “The ranking under NIRF is competitive and will not remain the same each year, forcing the institutes to keep improving. The grants and funding will be given more to the top ranked institutes which will help them grow better in world rankings,” said Javadekar to the reporters present.

A total of 3300 institutes participated and submitted their documents for this year’s NIRF rankings. Even individual colleges were ranked this year.

Besides research, placements were considered as an important parameter to determine the ranking of an institute. “Placements have been given importance this time so that the institutes produce employable students at the end of the course,” added Javadekar.

IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur were placed at the second and third spot following IIT Madras, which bagged the top rank in the Engineering section. Seven IITs find their spot in the top 10 list of the overall ranking of institutes, topped by IISc Bangalore. IISc also topped the Top University list with JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) and Bhagalpur Hindu University (BHU) at the second and third spot respectively. Jadavpur University, Kolkata made an entrance this year in the rankings, securing the fifth spot in the University list and the ninth spot in the Engineering institute ranking.

“JNU and Jadavpur University have been awarded ranks not because they have protested on various accounts. It is because of their work and research that they’ve found a place in the ranking,” said Javadekar while answering a question at the press conference.

Miranda House Delhi has been earmarked as the top college in the new category introduced in the NIRF ranking.

The NIRF was given the responsibility for collecting and collating ranks for various universities and institutions across the country under Ministry of Human Resources and Development for the year. This year, all the institutes who have taken part in the national ranking were ranked independent of their discipline or nature. It means, the rankings are done not on the basis of whether a certain institute caters to a certain stream of study and specialises in it. Last year, all IITs and IIMs received the highest ranks in their respective engineering and management streams. Universities were given a separate category under which rankings were made. The detailed list will be made public by the HRD Ministry on April 10, with details of all the institutes that have featured in the ranking list.

Institutes with less than 1000 enrolled students have been given a discipline specific rank this year. Only those institutes that have a record of graduating at least three batches of students in a certain program were given an opportunity to participate in the ranking procedure. The ranking was done keeping in mind the teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcomes of the institutes, outreach , inclusivity and perception of the educational institutes.

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Click here to get the entire Ranking list.