Bhubaneswar: A day after poor show by State government-run educational institutions in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Odisha Higher Education minister on Tuesday said the State needed more time to compete with national level institutions.
“Considering the current scenario, I believe it will take some years to compete with the national-level institutions,” Higher Education Minister Pradeep Panigrahi told OTV.
“We need to work really hard to meet the parameters set by the Centre so that we can excel in our respective fields and compete with others in the country,” stated Panigrahi.
Stressing on the need for infrastructure development of the educational institutions, he noted that time has come to concentrate more on research-based studies.
“Yes we need to work hard on research-based studies for better ranking at the national level,” Panigrahi mentioned. According to MHRD’s NIRF rankings for higher educational institutions in India, in overall ranking four from the State have made it to the top-100 list. While Sikha ‘O’ Anusandhan University in the State capital secured 33rd rank, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela was ranked 46th. Similarly, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) have been placed at 66th and 79th ranks respectively.
Meanwhile, the dismal show of the institutes has not been received well by the educationists who feel that fund crunch has become a major hurdle for improvement of education standards in the State.
“This is always oriented towards the engineering and professional institutions and is proving disadvantageous to any general institute. It is completely impossible to compete with IITs, Central Universities and private institutes and do better in rankings, if the budget we are getting from State government is considered,” said Ashok Kumar Das, vice-chancellor, Utkal University.