In its centenary year, the Delhi University (DU) has slipped by one spot to settle at 13th place in the country, in the seventh edition of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), which Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan released on July 15.
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) improved its tally, climbing from 6th spot last year to 3rd this year. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) retained the second position among all national universities.
The other universities in the city that made it to the top 50 in the NIRF ranking include Delhi Technological University at the 38th position and Jamia Hamdard University at the 48th position.
While DU slipped in the ranking, five of its constituent colleges made it to the list of top 10 Indian colleges.
Miranda house retained its pole position for the sixth consecutive year and the Hindu College was placed second.
Jamia’s rise
Najma Akhtar, the Vice-Chancellor of JMI, said that the improvement in her university’s ranking was a result of the institution making consistent efforts to improve the quality of teaching, learning and research.
“In NIRF ranking we progressed from 83rd rank in 2016 to 6th rank in 2021. And now figure among the top three universities of the nation,” she said.
Ms. Akhtar attributed the remarkable upswing to “focused and high-quality research,” as well as to the standards of teaching by “the dedicated and devoted faculty of the university”.
She said the university had lost many of its faculty members to COVID-19 and this pushed the others to work harder.
“Our faculty members did a lot of research work. Their efforts have reflected in the ranking," she added.
Ms. Akhtar said the improvement in terms of teaching, placements and research, etc. had also contributed to the improvement in JMI’s ranking.
JMI has become one of the most sought-after universities and the increased number of applications for admissions to the university testifies to this fact, she added.
Room for improvement
Yogesh Singh, DU Vice-Chancellor, said the university administration was going through the NIRF rankings to find out ways of improving its ranking.
“One of the areas of improvement we have identified is the faculty-to-student ratio. We are in the process of hiring teachers, but the results will show in the next couple of years. I am confident that in the coming years we will plug the gaps and see an improvement in the ranking,” Mr. Singh said. Another area where Mr. Singh said the university will focus is research.
The university’s best performance over the last five years in the NIRF rankings was in 2018 when it was placed in the 7th spot. Since then, the university was placed 13th in 2019, 11th in 2020 and 12th last year.
Although DU has seen a drop in rankings, many of its colleges are featured in the NIRF’s list of top 50 colleges in the country. Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College made a surprise entry in the list of top 10 colleges in India.
JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit congratulated the “JNU community” for helping the university represent “excellence with equity, inclusion with innovation and integrity”. Ms. Pandit described the result as a “remarkable achievement”.
The NIRF rankings are done for various categories — universities, colleges, research institutions, etc.
