HRD ministry plans to rank Law, Medical colleges from next yr

New Delhi, May 22: The HRD ministry is planning to rank Medical and Law colleges, which were left out of its system of ranking higher education institutions, from next year.

So far, Universities, Management, Engineering and Pharmacy colleges were part of its national ranking system.

Sources in the Smriti Irani-led Ministry said the feedback recieved after the first ever national rankings released on April 4 was reviewed at a meeting earlier this month where senior officials, including Secretary Higher Education V S Oberoi, were present.

"It has been felt that Law and Medical categories are being missed out from this comprehensive exercise. After deliberation, it was decided that the set of parameters for Law Institutes can be sought from Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Delhi, while the same for Medical Institutes can be sought from Director, AIIMS," senior officials said.

It was also decided that the National Board of Accreditation (NBA), which had conducted the ranking exercise earlier, may constitute a sub-committee with stakeholders from Law and Health Ministries to finalize the parameters for Law and Medical streams, they added.

"By adding Medical and Law categories, the need of many students who wish to join institutions in these streams would be taken care of," they said. It was also felt in the meeting that only those institutions where at least two batches have passed out should be evaluated.

The need for creation of a subset of parameters to improve efficiency of Ranking, was also emphasised.

The possibility of collecting data through the All India Survey for Higher Education (AISHE) for the ranking survey is also being explored.

The AISHE also collects data from higher education institutions and the attempt is to streamline processes so there is no duplication of efforts, a source said.

Earlier this month, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) covering 3,500 different institutes in four different categories was released by HRD minister Irani.

The institutions were ranked on five parameters - teaching and learning resources, research, outreach and inclusivity, graduation outcome and perception.

PTI