NAAC to rank Indian Universities

Mumbai:Indian Universities may soon be ranked by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and the ranking system would be in global perspective. NAAC,an autonomous body to assess and credit institutions of higher education in the country is discussing the possibilities with concerned departments and a committee has been formed to devise a framework, reported Business Standard.

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For developing its own grading scales, NAAC is studying various university ranking models like Shanghai Jiao Tong University's (SJTU) Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the UK and Australia.

The committee set up for the purpose are visiting and studying various colleges and universities. "We intend to introduce our own rankings, based on world class indicators, something on the lines of Shanghai?s ARWU. Such an Indian ranking formed by NAAC should be respected by institutions across the world," said HA Ranganath, Director, NAAC.

In the SJTU ranking model, the main indicators are the number of alumni who got Nobel Prize or Fields Medal since 1901, number of researchers who earned a Noble Prize in physics, chemistry, medicine or economics and/or the Fields Medal in mathematics since 1911, number of highly-cited researchers in the fields of life science, medicine, physics, engineering and social sciences, number of articles published in Nature and Science between 2003-2007, and number of articles listed in Thompson Scientific's Science Citation Index Expanded and its Social Sciences Citation Index in 2007.

NAAC will make an in depth research before announcing the ranking system. The body is closely studying the Shanghai index which includes two categories based on Nobel prizes and Fields medals. However, according to Ranganath,"While it might be tough to come up with exact indicators like that of Shanghai including Nobel prize winners and Fields medals, our indicators will be globally acceptable."

The new ranking system would be applicable on both NAAC accredited institutions and the other institutes. "While it is premature to state an exact date, we intend to come up with indicators for the rankings by 2010-11," Ranganath said.