NIRF risks promoting reputation over merit

When the Government of India launched the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2015, it did so with a noble promise: to build a fair, transparent, and indigenous alternative to global university rankings. For years, Indian institutions had suffered in the QS and Times Higher Education tables, not because they lacked academic strength, but because those rankings privileged international visibility, foreign faculty, and reputation surveys. NIRF was meant to change the narrative. It promised to measure institutions on metrics that reflected Indian realities, rewarding inclusivity, and empowering students, recruiters, and policymakers to make informed choices based on evidence, not elitism.

Nearly a decade later, NIRF has grown into something far more powerful than a ranking list. It now determines who gets research grants, autonomy, student loans, and media mileage. Banks check NIRF scores before funding campuses. Students use it as a shortcut to shortlist colleges. Universities flaunt their ranks on billboards like election slogans. Private colleges, especially, have turned NIRF badges into marketing ammunition. In less than ten years, NIRF has become one of the most influential forces in Indian higher education. But power without accountability is dangerous. What began as a reformist tool is today facing a crisis of credibility. Instead of dismantling academic hierarchies, NIRF is accused of entrenching them. Instead of rewarding genuine quality, it risks incentivising statistical manipulation. Instead of reflecting reality, it may reward those skilled at gaming the system.

NIRF evaluates institutions across five parameters: Teaching, Learning, and Resources (TLR); Research and Professional Practice (RP); Graduation Outcomes (GO); Outreach and Inclusivity (OI); and Perception (PR). On paper, this is comprehensive. In practice, several cracks are now impossible to ignore.

The most problematic metric is Perception. Officially, it carries only 10% weightage. Yet, studies show perception scores correlate up to 85% with overall ranks among the top 100 institutions. That means rankings are echoing reputation rather than recognising real performance. Worse, the process is opaque. Who is surveyed? How many? Are respondents discipline-balanced? No one knows. Unsurprisingly, legacy central institutions like IITs and AIIMS dominate year after year, while high-performing state universities and private entrants struggle to be seen.

The other serious distortion lies in the Research and Professional Practice metric. Nearly one-fifth of a college’s score depends on publication and citation data sourced from global databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. This was supposed to boost India’s research culture. Instead, it has triggered a dangerous race for quantity over quality. India now ranks second globally in research retractions. Alarmingly, some institutions with high retraction counts have seen their NIRF research scores improve, proof that misconduct is not meaningfully penalised. A recent rule to deduct marks for retractions was hailed as bold, but enforcement has been arbitrary. Some offenders escaped untouched, while others were disproportionately punished.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that teaching quality, the core mission of universities, barely counts. The TLR metric relies mostly on inputs like faculty strength, faculty-student ratio, and percentage of PhD-qualified staff. These numbers say nothing about classroom experience. Worse, they are easily faked. Institutions have been reported as inflating faculty rosters just before submission. There is no tracking of pedagogy, student satisfaction, curriculum relevance, or mentorship quality. NIRF is measuring infrastructure, not education.

Graduation outcomes, which should be the most important metric for students and parents, is similarly weak. Placement data is often exaggerated. Internships are rebranded as full-time offers. Salaries are padded with hypothetical bonuses. There is no third-party audit. Consider the irony: IIT Madras routinely tops NIRF rankings, yet IIT Bombay remains the most preferred choice among top JEE rankers, simply because its placement network is stronger. If NIRF rankings do not influence real student choices, what purpose do they serve?

The missing trust

Compounding all this is NIRF’s blind faith in self-reported data. Institutions upload their own numbers with little verification. Major discrepancies have been found between what institutions report to NIRF, what they submit to accreditation agencies, and what appears on their websites. Definitions are ambiguous. Do adjuncts count as faculty? Are visiting professors included? When ranks determine prestige and funding, the temptation to inflate numbers becomes irresistible. What was meant to ensure accountability now risks legitimising manipulation.

Inclusivity, though part of the framework, is treated with tokenism. The Outreach and Inclusivity score assigns minimal weight to diversity indicators such as gender equity, disability access, or implementation of reservation policies. In a country where access to education remains deeply unequal, superficial acknowledgement is not enough.

The biggest problem, however, is methodological stagnation. Higher education in India has transformed
in the last ten years with digital classrooms, hybrid models, and rising entrepreneurship. Yet, NIRF’s methodology has remained static. Critical details, such as perception respondent counts, penalty formulas, and data conflict resolution, remain hidden from public view. Without transparency, trust evaporates. So what must change?

The research metrics must reward quality, not quantity. Only peer-reviewed publications in credible journals should count. Self-citations, both individual and institutional, must be excluded. Retraction penalties must be applied uniformly and disclosed publicly. The teaching quality must finally be measured meaningfully. Student feedback, curriculum innovation, competitive exam performance, and start-up outcomes should replace superficial faculty counts. And data integrity must be enforced through independent audits. The proposed ‘One Nation, One Data’ system could be revolutionary, but only if inconsistencies across agencies are eliminated.

The perception surveys must be redesigned scientifically, with transparent sampling and discipline-level separation. Finally, India must rethink its obsession with single-number rankings. Multi-dimensional scorecards or grading bands would allow students, parents, and employers to assign their own priorities instead of blindly trusting a one-size-fits-all hierarchy. Ten years on, NIRF stands at a crossroads. It must choose: evolve into an instrument of truth, or fade into a ceremonial scoreboard. India’s academic future may depend on that choice.

(Yusuf teaches biotechnology at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar
University, Lucknow; Navneet teaches education at the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala)