Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 22 Jul: The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)-2022 was released on 15 July.
Premier institutes like the IIT Madras retained their top positions in the ‘overall educational institutes’ and ‘engineering’ categories this year, while the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, ranked at the top in the university category.
The NIT Arunachal Pradesh was ranked 171st in the engineering category. However, Rajiv Gandhi University (RGU) did not make it to the list this year also.
In 2019, RGU stood at the 99th position in the rankings. Since then the university has not managed to secure any position for the third consecutive year.
There are basically five broad generic groups of parameters of teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity and perception, based on which the national framework judges the institutions.
While many claim that RGU’s performance has only deteriorated in the past few years due to the apathy of the government, others blame issues within the RGU administration for the poor performance.
According to RGU’s Vice Chancellor S Kushwaha, “The Covid-19 pandemic hampered many activities of the university and affected the overall rankings.”
“There are various parameters of the rankings, which include scholars’ publications, projects and perception of the overall university, etc. This is mostly based on the evaluation of the teachers also,” he added.
Meanwhile, some students and research scholars have their own opinions on the issue.
Chukhu Menya, a final semester student at RGU said, “I don’t know why the university could not make it to the NIFR list. I think RGU has lots of intellectual teachers and professors, but I don’t know why it still fails to give quality education to students. The government, or the ministers and MLAs concerned, can look into these matters and solve the problems of the university.”
Research scholar Prem Taba said, “Those who have followed the dramatic events in the years of RGU’s existence, especially in recent years, the fall in rankings of Arunachal’s primary central university does not come as a surprise. Through the years, it has been embroiled in ceaseless controversies, either relating to its vice chancellor or its administrative bodies.
“Once an institute that promised excellence in education to the tribal students of the state, it now functions as a slothful central government bureaucracy, with its appointments of vice chancellors in particular, often fraught with controversy.”
Taba claimed that the university failed to address its basic infrastructural issues and focused more on “unnecessary renovations, programmes and celebrations.”
“There is a large disconnect of the students and faculties with the administration. There’s a certain level of apathy from the administration and management members, which has not been distinguished enough in the past. The university is supposed to be a free space for exchange of ideas. As research scholars, the least we desire is a peaceful ecosystem for research, timely disbursal of fellowships, and professionalism for future growth, which we can even extend to our next generations. That is missing today.
“The administration and the faculties, as well as scholars, are always at polar ends,” he said.
Regarding the poor state of the university’s infrastructure, one of the university’s professors stated that the university has not been receiving any fund from the government.
“The competition is severe; if we want our university’s ranking to improve, we need to develop the existing infrastructure. We need to improve academic work, increase scholars’ publications, introduce vocational courses, etc. Currently, the infrastructure is in a poor state; cracks have developed in many of the university’s buildings; there is poor internet service and insufficient teachers,” said the professor.
The professor insinuated that there are various internal issues that are seriously afflicting the state’s premier university.
