NIRF RANKING: A NATIONAL SHAM

“In contemporary academia, anything that can be measured, gets a measure (Moed & Halevi,2015)” ~ [1]

The 10th edition of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was officially released on September 4, 2025, by the Ministry of Education. IIT Chennai retains its position as the top institute of India for 7th consecutive time, including being top engineering college for 10th consecutive times, followed by IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai. IISc Bangalore is ranked the best university in India and Jadavpur university has been ranked the best state university beating Anna university. But beneath the surface celebration by the contemporary media, a further analysis of the rankings will disclose the trends and effects of NIRF in Indian education system, private universities rising through the ranks while state - public universities fall behind, costly IITs shown as the torch bearer of Indian education while affordable education goes down the curve. Beneath its technocratic veneer, NIRF propagates the neoliberal logics of capital aggression, commodification and competition in academic sphere. This article deploys a Marxist framework to interrogate NIRF as part of the larger apparatus of neoliberal governance in higher education.

Let’s first start with the methodological problems of NIRF ranking system. There are five parameters of NIRF Ranking a) Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR) b) Research and Professional Practice (RP) c) Graduation Outcomes (GO) d) Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) e) Peer Perception. Many articles and research papers have already been published about the discrepancies and inefficiencies of the methodology of NIRF ranking. Like in the parameter on faculty quality and experience, it does not include the student perception or feedback about the faculty. As written in Challenges of National Institute’s Ranking Framework (NIRF) by Pant, Jayanti; Bhadoria, Ajeet Singh “Students, being the major stakeholders in the educational institutes, must have their say, and feedback from the students must be considered for judging the faculty quality”. Student strength of an institution is also a parameter under TLR which can be easily exploited by private institutes which usually have high student intake. But a key issue is the disproportionate weightage allotted to the RP section, the research impact metrics (number of research papers published, number of citations, h index etc). Various reports show how after the introduction of NIRF various institutions have participated in a rat race of paper publishing with a publish or perish attitude. (For reference one can read “Impact of NIRF Ranking on Research Publications: A Study special Reference to North-East Indian Universities” by PRANJAL DEKA and Mukut Sarmah) Practice of self-citations and citation by colleagues from the same institute has increased tremendously. Private universities are paying a hefty sum for writing papers in high impact indexed journals, as a result private universities are climbing the ladder rapidly while public universities fall behind.

Now one may ask why these discrepancies are not being addressed? Why so much focus is put on research impact metrics for deciding institution rankings? As explained by Luis Arboledas-Lérida in “A Marxist Analysis of the Metrification of Academic Labor: Research Impact Metrics and Socially Necessary Labor Time” “The whole secret of the proliferation of research impact metrics in contemporary academia lies in the fact that academic production is increasingly carried out in a private and independent manner”. As capitalist relations of production in academia intensifies, it turns into a commodity and as a nature of commodity production the control over the expenditure of what is produced and how the production process is organised (social labour), is removed from the producers (academics) themselves. Due to which “The different private and independent working activities can only be coordinated in an indirect form; the unity of social labour is achieved by indirect means. This is the role that research impact metrics play in contemporary academia….. It is by means of metrics that academics try to influence each other and regulate how each one applies his/her corresponding share of total social labour.” Meaning the research impact metrices are indexes of socially necessary labour time, quantifying whether the work embodied in a research product such as a paper meets the needs of the academic community and is produced under prevailing social and technical conditions of average intensity and skill, per Marx’s saying. Due to which they reduce rich, diverse academic labour (fieldwork, writing, mentoring, theorising) to an abstract average (citations, h-index). Real intellectual contribution and long-term usefulness get ignored if they don’t fit the current metric averages. Institutions manipulate rankings by strategic hiring, co-authorship networks, or journal targeting and the dependence on private providers like Clarivate, Elsevier increases which control access of citation data, further commodifying metrics. By using research impact metrics and converting other academic activities into quantifiable numbers NIRF validates institutes by seeing how their outputs compare against averages also turning them into commodities competing in an academic market. Institutions chase ranking instead of real needs (like teaching quality, affordability, infrastructure, mental health of students and faculty), inflates various data like research output, placement numbers (effectively how much labour power can the institute sell to capital), faculty quality. Ranking is also the “most powerful audit form”. State fundings and autonomy like Institute of Eminence tag, NAAC grades, UGC schemes are tied to rankings. Institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS that serve the techno-managerial needs of Indian and global capital, keeps rising in ranks due to its large budgets, privileged access to resources (both infrastructure and faculties), ability to attract grants. Also, due to its high ranking, central governments justify its high spending spree behind these institutes creating a vicious loop that breeds unequal fund allocation, oligarchic stratification and all-over structural advantage that benefits elite institutions. As state-imposed austerity, rankings became tools to distribute shrinking resources, legitimising cuts while consolidating power in elite universities. Which is why state public universities like Jadavpur University, Calcutta University due to low fund, worsening infrastructure and facilities falls behind in overall ranking every year. Jadavpur university's ranking fell from 12 in 2020 to 18 in 2025 and Calcutta University's ranking fell from 11 in 2020 to 47 in 2025. With the increase of their neglection we can see the rise in number of private institutes all over the country. The logic is simple, since the state public universities fall behind, private institutions must “rescue education”. To improve ranking, universities have to implement “neoliberal” practices, like fee hike, seek private funding tie up with industry and create skilled labour(slaves) according to the expectations of national and global capital. This very much falls in line with New Education Policy’s (2020) drive for privatisation. These issues breed from the global ranking systems like Times Higher Education (THE), QS which present a vision of a global higher education marketplace but in practice entrench existing hierarchies, with Ivy League, Oxbridge, and well-funded Western universities monopolising the top positions and NIRF, launched as a direct counterweight to Western-dominated international rankings, thus attempts to concurrently excel in and rebuff the global system of rankings.

As Marxists we believe the evaluation of universities must focus on what meets the urgent needs of people such as affordable education, scientific progress, cultural enrichment, and reduction of inequality. Institutions should share resources and knowledge, not compete for ranks in a zero-sum game. Resource allocation must uplift neglected state- public universities which still provide affordable education. And overall education must be de-commodified. Every one has the right for free and quality education. For this reality to come into light students have to reject the culture of competitive consumer choice in education and reject rankings like NIRF. Teachers and workers must unite against audit regimes that devalue their labour. And we must organize as one to demand universities serve the people, not markets. We must envision a system where education would not be controlled by capitalist interests but would aim for the free development of individuals within a community, liberated from class divisions.

[1] - Luis Arboledas-Lérida in A Marxist Analysis of the Metrification of Academic Labor: Research Impact Metrics and Socially Necessary Labor Time