RGU secures 74th position in EW India Higher Education ranking

ITANAGAR, Jun 5: Rajiv Gandhi University [RGU] has been ranked 74th among the top 150 government universities of the country by the Education World magazine.
This is the highest ranking the university has ever achieved in a national-level ranking, according to an RGU release.
The university had been ranked 99th among all the universities of the country by the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2019. It had jumped 25 places from the 124th position in 2018 to reach the spot that year.
This time, for 2020-21, EW India Higher Education Rankings has introduced a separate league table, rating the country’s government varsities under 10 parameters, including faculty competence, faculty welfare and development, research and innovation, curriculum and pedagogy, industry interface, placements, infrastructure, internationalism, leadership/governance quality and range/diversity of programmes offered.
The survey was conducted by 150 field personnel of the Delhi-based market research and the Opinion Polls Company, Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt Ltd by interviewing 4,168 sample respondents comprising 2,214 faculties and 1,126 final year students of 162 universities, and 828 industry representatives in 25 cities countrywide, the release said.
“RGU has scored higher grades in the parameters, like competence of faculty, leadership/governance quality and range/diversity of programmes offered,” it said.
In the Northeast region, RGU has been placed in the third position, after Tezpur University, Assam, and the North-Eastern Hill University, Meghalaya.
Governor BD Mishra, who is also the chief rector of RGU, congratulated the entire university family for the achievement.
During a telephonic conversation with RGU VC, Prof Saket Kushwaha, Mishra said the university would “continue to strive to excel and work with a collective vision to take RGU to the top spot in the days to come.”
Prof Kushwaha also congratulated both the teaching and the non-teaching staffs of the university for their relentless efforts to uplift the quality of education in the state, and for their determination to improve the competitiveness of the university at the national level.
He said “the university community attributes this achievement as an outcome of the persistent efforts of the ‘Team RGU’, including its students and research scholars, for the improvement in teaching and research environment of the university.
“This achievement has come in the backdrop of some other major achievements of the university,” he added.
“Education World is an organization which basically deals with education and publishes a popular magazine called Education World. It brings out survey-based rankings and data on educational institute from preschools to higher education institutes,” said RGU Joint Registrar (Academic & Conference), Dr David Pertin, who is also a member of the university’s internal quality assurance cell.
“In the May 2020 edition of the magazine, they published a list of the top 150 government universities league table, using 10 parameters, wherein RGU scored a total of 798 out of 1300 points to secure 74th position,” Dr Pertin said.
“RGU separately scored 121 and 122 points out of 150 each in infrastructure and facility and in competency of faculty, respectively, while 67 in faculty welfare and development, 62 in curriculum and pedagogy, 65 in industry interface, 59 in placement, 62 in internationalism, 68 in leadership/governance quality and 71 in range/diversity of programmes offered, all out of 100 total points each. RGU, however, has scored not so well in research and innovation parameter as it managed only 101 points out of 300,” he said.
The National Institutional Ranking Framework is a methodology adopted by the MHRD to rank institutions of higher education in India. The MHRD rankings of universities in India were started in 2016.
Dr Pertin further informed that RGU is the only government-funded university from the Northeast which stood out among 24 organizations of the entire country selected for receiving grant-in-aid under the Atal Innovation Mission of the NITI Aayog for establishment of an Atal community innovation centre.
RGU was also recently selected for establishment of a centre of sports science & research under the National Centre of Sports Science and Research scheme of the youth affairs & sports ministry.