"University rankings carried out with commercial interests"

P. Balaram, former director of Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has questioned the universities’ ranking system and its understanding in the country.

“Many university rankings are carried by commercial interests. Press, politicians and educationists do not understand how rankings are worked out and set off discussions without understanding the realities in which institutions operate,” he said. He was here for the South Zone Vice-Chancellors’ Conference held at VIT University. “Education now is worldwide business, with a great need to rank to enable students to choose institutions,” he added.

He said that it was important to look at an institution’s research activities, papers published and widely cited is important.

“We have forgotten what universities are. They are broad-based centres of learning and knowledge creation in various disciplines,” Mr. Balaram said.

“To expand higher education, we need excellence, we need higher education to cover broad section of population to increase gross enrolment ratio,” he added.

An ideal university should have best of teaching and great deal of teaching, best of research and great deal of research. “Some universities do not have research, while some have mostly research and little teaching,” he noted.

He said that Vice-Chancellors faced severe constraints in voicing the cry for reforms.

Academic thinking is missing in many academic discussions, he said, adding, “VCs’ are hampered by Syndicates that have political appointees. There are political appointees in search committees for selecting VCs in many States.”