Six of the ten places at the top in the “overall” category of the National Institutional Ranking Framework 2025 were taken up by the Indian Institutes of Technology. The IITs have dominated this category repeatedly. The other four places were taken by the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Banaras Hindu University. Is there a message in the predominance of specialist institutions in the top ten? Perhaps it raises the question whether specialist institutions should be placed on the same plane as colleges and universities that teach the arts and sciences and conduct research with different goals and assessment systems. Besides, the IITs have enormous advantages over universities — public and private — in the form of unstinted government support in funds, autonomy and resources. Universities not only have different intake rules but they also deal with much larger numbers of students and with affiliated colleges while being short of funds. Yet the remarks of the Union education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, did not seem relevant when he expressed his disappointment that IIT graduates do not contribute to the nation as expected; they work either overseas or in multinational organisations in India. Since the IITs produce the best professional people, they will inevitably gravitate to the most enabling professional environments. They have the right to choose whether they will work for the Indian Railways or a multinational corporation. Perhaps the work environment in the country needs to change before the cause of Mr Pradhan’s discontent is reversed.
The NIRF did not have good news for West Bengal. Much is being made of the fact that Jadavpur University topped the list for state public universities, but among engineering institutions, the university, once famous for engineering, has slipped down to the 18th place. Here too, IIT Kharagpur stood fifth, while overall it was ninth. Jadavpur University is ninth among universities, which is not bad, but Calcutta University is ranked 39, down from 18 last year, and is ranked 15th among state public universities, down from fourth place last year. Most institutions, even among colleges — except Lady Brabourne College at rank 47 — show a slide, big or small. This augurs ill for the state. West Bengal needs to pull back from the edge as far as education is concerned.