JU rank slip prods review of improvement areas
Kolkata: Concerned over the drop in the ranking of National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), which was recently released, the faculty council for engineering and technology of Jadavpur University has decided to conduct a thorough review and identify the areas for improvement. The general meeting of the faculty council that is scheduled on Tuesday is likely to set up a committee in this regard.
The Jadavpur University has been ranked 14th in NIRF ranking by the Ministry of Human Resource Development among the engineering institutions in the country slipping from the 9th position, which the varsity attained in 2017 and 12th in 2018.
"The primary reason behind the decline in ranking can be attributed to less number of research outputs. This is applicable not only to the engineering departments but to all the departments in the varsity. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country are posing a stiff competition to us. We will examine the different parameters in the score-sheet and will accordingly prepare a road map for the journey forward," a member of the faculty council for engineering said. In the NIRF ranking, the first eight spots have gone to the Indian Institutes of Technology. The Anna University in Chennai ranked 9th and the 13th spot has gone to IIT Indore, which is a new institution.
"We aim to improve our ranking in 2020 with around 150 research projects by individual teachers under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA). These teachers are already getting their projects sanctioned. All these projects will be completed in one year and the output will reflect by the beginning of next year. So we will be able to showcase our research output in a better way," said the dean of engineering department of the varsity, Chiranjib Bhattacharjee.
Members of the faculty council also pointed out that research funding for IITs is much higher than JU. "If there was a parameter in NIRF on output based on input then we would have surely ranked among the very best," a senior member of the faculty council said.
The Jadavpur University will be getting a fund of Rs 100 crore from the Centre under RUSA. A major chunk of the funds have already reached the varsity.
The university is the first institute of higher education in the state to have received the grant, based on its NAAC accreditation for five years, beginning September 2014. RUSA is a scheme that provides financial aid to selected state universities to upgrade research facilities.
More than 4,000 students are presently pursuing engineering at JU at the undergraduate level while in the post-graduate level it is more than 1,200. The total number of engineering students in the varsity is around 5,500.
