NIRF Ranking Shakes the B School World!

 

For survival and further excellence, B schools will have to address the core of education, research and employability as highlighted in NIRF ranking methodology. Will have to  cut down on strategies of gaming on the fringe and  mere brand building for attracting students with hollow hallmarks. 

Anxiety and excitement surrounded the release of NIRF 2019 ranking, its 4th on higher education institutions since its first ranking came in 2016.  NIRF has created flutters in the higher education arena drawing every institutions to the board room, be it universities, colleges, IITs or IIMs, govt. or private institutions for review and chalking the way forward, some dismayed with awe, others in gloom as they doomed. It is no exaggeration that NIRF has shaken the institutions across disciplines and has created a new paradigm for measuring excellence and quality. The ranking results show that barring few of the top institutions which are old and have established credentials, rest of the institutions need to  re-calibrate their  priorities and focus on creating value through right and relevant curriculum, teaching- learning process, rich intellectual pool with teaching and research abilities, invest  resources while keeping students in the center. Ironically, priority of many institutions in past decade has been on working on the peripheries and creating hollow branding to attract students and neglecting  few of the above important academic pursuits. This trend has been encouraged by the sudden spurt of private ranking agencies across the country, few national level and others regional or even state level.

In the management education category, it is a jolt this year for the premier IIM Ahmedabad to see itself dethroned to second place from the first of NIRF 2018 and several other rankings over the years  by IIM Bangalore.. IIM A is not alone in making headlines for the dip  this year as central university like Delhi University also went down to 13h rank in the university category.  The top 6 ranks in management include 5 IIMs,  one IIT  (IIT Kharagpur).  XLRI is the only private B school to be found in Top 10 at rank 7. Among the top 25 ranked institutions it is IIMs, IITs and NITs only,  except for XLRI, MDI, S P Jain, Great Lakes, NMIMS and Symbiosis which are private institutions. These private institutions in rankings other than NIRF,  figure among the top rungs. Among IIMs,  28th rank is the lowest which is of IIM Ranchi which is a relatively new IIM.  To the dismay of many,  one time favorites and otherwise ranked higher, two other govt. institutions, IIFT and FMS Delhi have  moved down to 31st and 36th ranks respectively in NIRF. Even among the private institutions, few like IMT Ghaziabad (41), IMI Delhi (27), TAPMI (33), K J Somaiya (54) and others which figure amongst the top ranked institutions otherwise are much lower in NIRF rankings.

NIRF having a credible methodology and has evolved as an objective measure over the years  thus showing mirrors to the institutes around few of the critical parameters which are important  for higher education in every discipline. For example in the management category, it has incorporated in its ranking methodology, Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR); Research and Professional Practice (RPP); Graduation Outcome (GO); Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception. The ranking methodology and parameters and the process adopted are quite different from the other ranking agencies which many a times are found to be subjective and biased. The latter  have numerous categories under each stream unlike NIRF where every type of institutions is clubbed under one stream only.

The overall score and parameter scores of NIRF ranked institutions throw a picture very different in color than they are  often  believed and show a wide divide and variations in strengths and status of the 75 ranked institutions. On the top IIM B has overall score of 81.34 out of 100 followed by a sharp dip in the score of rank 4 IIM Lucknow which is at 67.29,  a difference of  14.05 score indicating significant strength gap between the top and 4th place. IIM L loses out to IIM Bangalore across all parameters but most significantly in research, (RPP: -20.5), Perception(-30.43) and Outreach and Inclusivity(OI; -15.54. IIM A fell short of Bangalore in teaching learning (TLR), OI and Perception though it is ahead of the latter in RPP by 2.73 score. XLRI  at 6th rank in the list of 75 ranked schools, is the first private B  school and  is lower by 15.61 points of IIM B score, research is lower by 26.09 score and perception by 54 points.  MDI at 12th rank, the second private B school is lower by 19.45 points overall and  approx. 20 points less in RPP of IIM B  whereas the third private school,  S P Jain at 16th rank is 25.67 points lower overall and 38.8 (!!!)  points lesser than IIM B in RPP. Further by the 27th ranked schools, the overall score is lesser by 29.17 points, by 50th rank the difference is of 36.62 score and at 75th rank it is lower by 42.14 points of the top.  The RPP (research) below IIML, MDI and few others as exceptions,  fall in range of scores, mere 9 to 19 and dips further in the range of 1 to 4 score for  50 and below ranked schools. This shows high variances in quality research and publications. One of the prime reasons for a university like DU even  is poor research which has slipped to 13th rank this year. The other large variation can be seen in the Perception parameter indicating stakeholders’ perception where the scores vary from 100 to 1.  TLR which measures the faculty – student ratio, quality of faculty, total budget &  its utilization and  GO which measures passed out graduates, placements, median salary, pursuing higher education and entrepreneurship also  have a major impact on the rankings of the institutes. While some of the high ranked institutions have TLR in the range of 100-80, the rest are in range of 60-80.  This variation  in TLR is indicative of the quality of  faculty resources employed ( academic credentials, research,  Ph. D/non Ph. D, experience) which vary even within IIMs,  not to talk of the variance between  the top 20-30 institutes and middle & bottom rung of 75 institutes. IIM Rohtak ranked 23rd has TLR of 59.9 as against the top rung IIMs having TLR score above 90.  TLR has been highlighted as one the key reasons for DU’s downfall as well as it faces severe faculty crunch due to no regular appointments for some years now. A high TLR also indicates the long term intent of the institute as it counts for the proportion of capital expenses of the total budget and this ids found to be missing in many B schools.  GO varies in scores from 60 to 90 and this implies the variation that the B schools show in the number of placements and the CTC\.  While IIMs take lead here with scores of 90 plus, private institutes MDI, SP Jain too do well. However, others in the list will have to really aspire for more and ensure  that they create skills and parity with  industry needs.

The 2019 NIRF ranking of 75 B schools clearly brings out three clusters. First, the top 3 IIMs (B, A & C with scores of 79.05, 80.61 & 81.34 respectively) with narrow score range are tipped for high order competition across parameters with global aspirations. Second cluster can be considered having other IIMs and few private select B schools in the rank band of 4-31 where scores lie between 50-70 (wide variation) and institutes need to focus around research, perception, TLR, GO, OI, sequence indicating the order of their priority for future efforts. The third cluster can be identified that of private b schools, both autonomous and private university run which fall below 30th rank and  the score range is 40-50 ( the score differences between schools are in decimals). This cluster typically characterizes low research, low perception, relatively low TLR, GO and OI. Something astonishing is that few of the institutions from the third and second cluster are found amongst the top B schools ranked in other rankings, hence  raising question mark on their objectivity and neutrality. Not that the NIRF methodology or its  parameter are  without questions. For instance, it combines govt. supported and private institutions together, institutions of huge differences in age and scale, institutions which are standalone or part of university are also clubbed together. A university linked B school or a 50 year old institution would have its own impact on their ranking as compared to stand alone or a newer institution.   Similarly too much focus on research and neglect of other impacts institutions create on society, industry and others can be questioned. Further, aspects like the value system they disseminate in youngsters, the long term and global  intent new B schools carry for their future, identifying their unique and best practices, internationalization, rural immersion and industry connect are few important elements which are missing from the  parameters in the NIRF ranking and should be considered. However, the moot question remains is,  will B schools in the country wake up to NIRF standards focusing  on the core issues of value creation or will they continue frittering  away on the fringes (for brand building out of nothing), addressing to the needs of various rankings and accreditations while remaining hollow in teaching-learning, skill development, industry readiness, placements, CTC and other ?  It is these latter type  B schools gaming  on the fringes which shall shake out of this NIRF rankings and other quality initiatives in the higher education sector.

 

 

 

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RajivRThakur

Professor, Strategy Birla Institute of Management Technology(BIMTECH), Gr Noida. View all posts by RajivRThakur 

Posted onApril 16, 2019AuthorRajivRThakur