PRÉCIS of “THE TROUBLE WITH RANKINGS” by Atanu Biswas

IS THE UNIVERSITY RANKING BEING DONE RIGHT?

- Mantasha Khan

The prevailing university ranking system such as Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli
Sysmonds is not appreciated in today’s era on a question whether this system should be used as a
standard of comparison or not.

MEANING OF UNIVERSITY AND THE PROBLEM WITH ITS RANKING

The concept of university has changed with the passage of time. “A university seems to be in its
essence, a place for circulation and communication of thought, by means of personal
intercourse, through the wide extent of country”, John Henry Newman said in his book ‘The
Idea of University’ and he also assumed that knowledge should be pursued ‘for its own sake’.
The idea of university evolved through Wilhelm von Humboldt principle which states about the
fusion of teaching and research and focusing on advancing knowledge by original and critical
research and not just by imparting legacy and skills only.

In India, the University of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were established with the purpose of
filling vacant positions with graduates during the colonial rule and the motto of these universities
was the ‘Advancement of Learning’.

The system of ranking involves calculating weighted average score for several performance
related criteria such as research income of industry, ratio of international to domestic staff and
students, number of students, research papers, citation (which is not considered an appropriate
measure) etc. These criteria create a barrier for small but important institution to enter into the
list. Different list of rankings is produced by different organizations due to their non-identical
criteria. Amongst all, reputational survey and academic peer review are considered as the most
inappropriate ranking methodology because it gives too much emphasis on perception.
IMPORTANCE OF PAPER PUBLICATION IN RANKING

The faculty members of an institution are expected to submit list of publications once or twice a
year as research publication is considered an important factor to lead the rank. A person is not
considered productive and competent for job in today’s academic system if he doesn’t conduct
research and publication, as said by Peter Higgs, the 2013 Nobel Laureate in Physics.

DIFFERENT UNIVERSITIES, DIFFERENT OBJECTIVES

Various universities differ in their purpose and objective. Universities at Chicago, Harvard and
Oxford focuses only on creating and decorating the standards of excellence of their students and
professors while other universities focus on providing higher education and enlightenment to the
local people. However, universities should be ranked on the basis of social perspective as some
universities may not be elite but serve the real social purpose.

Tagore has emphasized that a foreign university should not only be seen on the basis of its
buildings, furniture, regulations, syllabus etc. but a larger picture must be kept in mind while
judging these universities. The idea of university needs to be defined again as per the dynamic
social perspective and need.