Ranking of Institutions of Higher Education

Abstract

Ranking of higher education institutions (HEI) is a convenient and easily understandable method of evaluation and assessment. An ordinal number assigned to an HEI by a ranking system represents its comparative position in a list of ranked institutions based on marks obtained by it on various performance parameters or indicators. Ranking of HEIs have been lauded and criticised simultaneously. University rankings are often criticised for methodology used, choice of indicators and weightage assigned to them, focus on science, technology and English language publications, assessment of institutions as whole (instead of individual program) and the practice of assigning an ordinal number or a rank to represent quality of an HEI. At the same time, university rankings are lauded for serving as information tools for students, researchers, funding agencies, policy makers and other stakeholders as well as for instilling a competitive spirit amongst institutions to perform better in ranking systems. However, most experts agree that rankings are here to stay in the education market place. As such, although ranking system cannot measure quality of education and research in absolute term, it does serve as indicator to various aspects of quality in higher education, which, in turn, can be used by institutions themselves for improving their performance on these parameters. While universities are welcomed to use rankings for improving their performance, ranking systems should not dictate university policy, either at a national or institutional level, but should be used as a source of information for guiding policies that should be decided according to the needs of the university’s own community, traditions, market niche, national role and so on1.