WES Staff

Government Ratings

National Assessment and Accreditation Council

Established in 1994 by the University Grants Council, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is responsible for evaluating and accrediting Indian institutions of higher education and academic departments. Accredited institutions are awarded an overall grade (with a pass/fail threshold) on a scale of A++ to C. The NAAC grading scale has been revised on a number of occasions, changing from a pilot A to E grading pattern, to a five-star scale, to its current nine-point alphabetical scale.

As in the United States, the accreditation process is voluntary; unlike the United States, not all institutions interested in establishing their academic credibility have submitted their institutions and programs for review. However, at the time of writing a total of 128 universities and 2883 colleges had received a “grade” under the NAAC system of assessing institutions.

NAAC accreditation is based on a three-stage process:

• Preparation of a self-study report by the institution.
• Institutional visit by an external evaluation team.
• Grading, certification and accreditation based on the results of the previous two stages.

The commission’s full assessment criteria are available from its website at: naacindia.org/process.asp.

Both the star system and the current system are based on a 100-point scale. Institutions are graded according to the score they receive:

A score below 55 percent is considered a failing grade and accreditation is not awarded. Accreditation is good for five years.

The current list of accredited and reaccredited institutions along with their grades is available at: www.naac.gov.in/CGPA_System_accredited_inst.pdf.

Commercial Rankings

Dataquest-IDC-Nasscom

In June 2006 the IT trade magazine Dataquest published its third annual ranking of technology schools with a strong information technology focus. Not surprisingly, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) featured prominently, followed closely by the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT), and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs, formerly RECs), among a sprinkling of others. It should be noted that the criteria, indicators and weightings for the 2006 ranking are not the same for 2005, and a year-on-year comparison should be conducted with that in mind.

Methodology

The Dataquest rankings are based on a survey of recruiters and questionnaires sent to schools and institutes. Seventy-five percent of the overall score is based on response from the schools and 25 percent on response from IT recruiters. A total of 250 schools were contacted for the assessment, and 60 leading IT companies were invited to be part of the recruiter survey. The final size of the survey was 100 schools – those that did not respond in time or provided incomplete data were excluded.

The main criteria and weightings for school-provided data (worth 75 percent of the total) were: placements (40%, 7 indicators), infrastructure (10%, 8 indicators), academic environment/intellectual capital (20%, 7 indicators), industry interface (5%, 3 indicators). The perception score (worth 25 percent of the total) is based on interviews with recruiters who were asked to name their top schools for recruitment purposes.

Results

Source: Dataquest-IDC T-School Survey (June 2006)
*The top 100 is available from: <www.dqindia.com/images06/Complete%20Score%20Card.pdf>

India Today — AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG

Possibly the longest running ranking in India, the annual Top 10 Colleges report by the news weekly India Today rates the nation’s colleges in the arts, science, commerce, law engineering and medicine. Not unlike its U.S. equivalent, U.S. News & World Report, the India Today college ranking has been open to heavy criticism over the years, but has nonetheless found itself occupying a position of relative (and many would say unwarranted) influence over the decision-making process of prospective university and college students.

Methodology

The India Today rankings are based on the findings of an opinion poll of high-ranking university administrators at large state universities, academic experts, and objective data furnished by colleges and collected from their websites, in addition to data taken from secondary data sources such as the India Universities Handbook.

The opinion poll, results from which are used to develop the “perception score,” focus on seven criteria: reputation, curriculum, quality of academic input, student care, admission procedure, infrastructure and job prospects. Those polled only ranked institutions in their particular field of expertise. Factual data is collected only from institutions that receive top scores on the perception ratings. An exact listing of criteria and indicators is not provided, however, the following criteria are offered as examples: number of applicants, admission procedure, pass percentage of students, faculty, infrastructure and campus placement. A 70:30 overall weighting is applied to the perception and data scores respectively.

Results

Source: India Today – June 5, 2006

Source: India Today – June 13, 2006

Business Today, AC Nielsen ORG-MARG

Business Today, a news weekly owned by the India Today Group, published its fourth annual ranking of management schools in 2006. Based exclusively on the results of opinion polls and surveys sent out to students, recruiters and human resource managers, the 2006 rankings produced something of a surprise result in that a non-IIM branded school — Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune — took fourth spot ahead of some of the highly prestigious Indian Institutes of Management.

Methodology

A shortlist of 30 schools was selected from the results of surveys sent out to MBA aspirants and recruiters who were asked to list all the schools they would consider applying to or recruiting from. Those surveyed were asked to rate schools according to eight criteria: reputation, placement, quality of placement, infrastructure, faculty, teaching methodology, specialist units and admission eligibility. For the 2006 ranking there was a survey sample of 526 respondents, 25 percent of who were “MBA aspirants”.

Those 30 schools that made the “cut” were then assessed by MBA students, young executives (with two to three years’ experience) and heads of institutions, all of whom were asked to rate schools according to a range of criteria which included: favorite school, recommended school and the price premium commanded by a brand. The model employed by the Nielson rating agency is designed to calculate the “brand equity index” (BEI) for each school (the same model it uses in rating Fast Moving Consumer Goods!).

Results (2006)

Other Sources

Business World: www.businessworldindia.com/sep0604/coverstory05_a.asp