Why in news?
The Ministry of Education released the India Rankings 2025 under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). These rankings evaluate universities, colleges and specialised institutions across multiple disciplines and provide guidance to students and policymakers.
What is the NIRF?
Established in 2015, the National Institutional Ranking Framework assesses higher education institutions on objective criteria to promote transparency and quality benchmarking. The rankings help institutions measure progress and encourage competition.
Parameters and weightage
- Teaching, Learning and Resources (30 per cent): Evaluates faculty qualifications, student strength, facilities and financial resources.
- Research and Professional Practice (30 per cent): Measures publications, citations, patents and outreach.
- Graduation Outcomes (20 per cent): Looks at placement statistics, higher education admissions and median salaries.
- Outreach and Inclusivity (10 per cent): Considers gender balance, regional diversity and representation of disadvantaged groups.
- Perception (10 per cent): Captures academic and public reputation.
Highlights of the 2025 rankings
- Top performers: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras retained the top spot in the overall category for the seventh consecutive year and topped the engineering category for the tenth year. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru led the universities category for the tenth year.
- Domain leaders: IIM Ahmedabad led management institutions; AIIMS Delhi topped medical colleges; IIT Roorkee was number one in architecture; National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bengaluru topped the law category.
- Colleges: Hindu College retained the number one position among colleges for the second year. Six of the top ten colleges were from Delhi.
- Expanded categories: The 2025 rankings covered nine categories and eight subject domains. A new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) ranking was introduced, topped by IIT Madras.
- Participation: A record 7,692 institutions submitted data, indicating growing acceptance and competitiveness. Applications have risen nearly three‑fold since 2016.
- Diversified excellence: Institutions such as Jamia Hamdard (pharmacy), Indira Gandhi National Open University (open universities), Symbiosis (skill universities) and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (agriculture) topped specialised categories, illustrating that quality is not confined to IITs and IIMs.
The India Rankings help students make informed choices and encourage universities to continuously improve teaching, research and inclusivity. They also align higher education with the goals of the National Education Policy 2020 and India’s vision of becoming a knowledge economy by 2047.