Panel to review ranking mechanism of educational institutions

To analyse the feedback received regarding its first ever rankings of the country's educational institutions, the Union HRD ministry constituted a nine member expert committee that would review parameters and suggest improvements.



The Smriti Irani led HRD ministry had earlier this month released rankings of the country's educational institutions and the committee headed by secretary of higher education Vinay Sheel Oberoi would analyse the feedback.

"A lot of feedback is about classification of the institutions. We have to think whether there can be more categories for other disciplines like say law. To look holistically at the entire exercise we have decided to form this panel," a senior official said.
Apart from Oberoi, Prof Surendra Prasad, chairman of National Board of Accreditation, UGC chairman Ved Prakash, AICTE head Anil Sahasrabudhe, additional secretary R Subrahmanyam and other senior officials would be a part of the nine member panel.

The committee would invite representatives from educational institutions to get a more comprehensive outlook of the issues.
Among the terms of reference for the panel are review of ranking structures, rationalization of parameters, setting up a national institutional ranking framework (NIRF) cell at NBA and also examine the possibility of loading all data related to educational institutions, on the All India Survey of Higher Education and a parallel website.

"The committee would work so the feedback received after NIRF 2015 can be used to improve the rankings for the next year," the official added.

Allocation of funds for higher education less than half of proposed amount

 Parliament's standing committee on HRD has expressed concern with the rising trend of huge gap between the proposed demand and the actual allocation of funds for higher education. In its report tabled on Wednesday, the committee said "the actual allocation is less than half of what the ministry had proposed."

In another report on school education, standing committee asked HRD ministry to carry out a ground assessment of schools that are not giving 25% admission to children belonging to economically weaker sections. In case of mid-day meal, the parliamentary panel said that the amount paid to cooks is meagre and compensation should be brought to the level of MNREGA wages.