There are more than 1100 universities and more than 50,000 colleges in Republic of India, included in the Indian higher education system.
The Indian education system is most diverse in terms of the nature of institutions, universities created by the federal government and state governments (private and government), institutions of eminence, affiliated colleges, autonomous colleges, standalone colleges, deemed to be universities etc. There are generic universities and specialised professional universities. There are as many as 44 million students in higher education system, second largest in the world. In order to make students and parents aware of comparable quality education, India has both accreditation and ranking system in place.
Since 2016, the country has been using a national university ranking system – National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), operated by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). The NBA is responsible for accrediting professional educational programs, while another regulatory body, viz., the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), takes care of accrediting higher education institutions as a whole entity.
Indian ranking system evolved precisely on the seven principles espoused in the BRICS meeting, viz., purpose, assessment parameters and procedures, selection of assessors, transparency, no conflict of interest, extensive use of ICT, and annual public announcement of results in a function and posting all data on the website. The first ranking of 2016, next to providing general ranking of Indian universities, also included special university rankings in engineering, pharmacological and management education. Currently, NIRF (9th ranking, published in 2024) includes special university rankings in 8 categories and in 8 areas of higher education. NIRF presents university rankings in the following groups:
Thus, the ranking covers all organizations within the Indian higher education system.
Specialized rankings in certain areas of higher education are also published:
Assessment to prepare NIRF rankings covers five large groups of indicators combining more than 16 major metrics:
“Education, Training, Resources” indicators have the greatest influence on the final rating score, together with “Research and professional practice” indicators.
Ranking preparation includes the following:
With the Indian education system being the most diverse and one of the largest in the world, Indian National Board of Accreditation, NBA is ready to actively share its accumulated experience and competencies to build up the BRICS university ranking.