Calcutta University has ranked 4th among universities and St Xavier’s College, Park Street, 4th among colleges in India, followed by Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur, according to a list prepared by the Union education ministry that was announced on Thursday.
CU had ranked 7th in the university category of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) last year.
Jadavpur University, which had ranked 5th last year among universities, has slipped to 8th position. In engineering, JU is 17th, retaining last year’s position.
Last year, St Xavier’s and Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira shared the 7th position among colleges.
Father Dominic Savio, the principal of St Xavier’s College, said: “It is a major achievement to improve even during the pandemic. The teaching-learning process in the new normal, which has been exemplary, has also been recognised by the government.”
Swami Ekachittananda, the principal of Vidyamandira, said: “It comes as a just vindication of the effort we have put in to continue our quest for excellence amid the pandemic.”
Many on the Jadavpur campus attributed the performance to poor scores in areas like teaching, learning and resources; graduation outcomes; and outreach and inclusivity — three of the five parameters that are considered.
The other two parameters are research and professional practice, and peer perception.
A comparison of the parameter-wise scores shows CU has outdone JU on three counts.
In the teaching and learning parameter, the scores of CU and JU stand at 66.20 and 51.70, out of 100, respectively.
In the graduation outcomes criterion, CU and JU scored 91.72 and 87.77, respectively.
In outreach and inclusivity, CU has scored 60.98 and JU 50.16.
In research and professional practice, and perception, JU has done better with 51.72 and 67.31, against CU’s 43.92 and 45.77.
The teaching, learning and resources parameter contains components like student strength, including the number of PhD scholars, faculty-student ratio with emphasis on permanent faculty, combined metric for faculty with PhD (or equivalent) and experience and financial resources and their utilisation.
The parameter on outreach and inclusivity consists of percentage of students from other states/countries (regional diversity), percentage of women (women diversity), and the number of economically and socially challenged students.
In the BTech programme, JU has since 2019 reserved 90 per cent of its seats in the general category for students clearing their Plus-II exams from Bengal.
A JU official said they had to assess and find out whether the university’s rank was sliding because it was lagging behind in regional diversity or in other areas.
JU vice-chancellor Suranjan Das told The Telegraph: “As someone who has worked at Calcutta University, I am happy that the university has performed even better. I regret that JU’s ranking has dipped this year, although we are among the top 10. We have to assess the reasons that led to the dip.”
Last year, JU had asked its teachers to find out why the university’s position in the engineering category had been sliding over the past four years.
The university has not made any improvement this year. It ranked 9th in the engineering category in 2017.
“Unfortunately, we are faltering in an area that happened to be our strongest — engineering,” said a JU teacher.
CU vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said: “Any success is a stepping stone for further initiative towards betterment.”
This year, the top eight positions in the engineering category are taken by IITs. NIT Tiruchirappalli and NIT Surathkal occupy the remaining two positions among the top 10.
Where Bengal is placed
The toppers and where institutions from Bengal stand in the NIRF rankings (Number in bold shows the latest rank and that in brackets last year’s rank)
