NIRF Rankings 2022: Gujarat universities perform poorly; number of varsities drops

At 73rd rank, Gujarat University (GU) was the only state university to be ranked in the top 100 Overall category. Also, this is the only university from Gujarat under top 100 University category with a ranking of 58th. In both, the rankings have slipped as compared to last year.

NIRF Rankings 2022 | Top educational institutions | Best engineering colleges | Best colleges in India | Top medical colleges | Best management colleges

Last year, it was ranked at 62 in the top 100 overall category and 43 in the University category, but slipped by 11 points in the Overall and 15 points in the University category this year. “The rankings might be lower but we have scored higher marks than last year,” Gujarat University Vice Chancellor Himanshu Pandya told The Indian Express.

Under the university category in NIRF rankings last year, three universities had made it to the list of top 100 from Gujarat. These were Gujarat University (43), Pandit Deendayal Energy (formerly Petroleum) University Gandhinagar (73) and Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara (90), this year.

Further adding, he said, “Our ranking would have been much better if we scored better in perception where we got the lowest score of 2.65. Research and publications, the other area that affected our ranking as due to Covid pandemic it was less this year. Also, the number of applicants increased, this year.” The University had scored 18.38 in research and publication.

The Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITG) — the only higher education institute from Gujarat to be ranked among the top 50 educational institutions in the country under the overall category — moved down from 33rd to 37th position. However, it moved up from 39th to 34th rank in the research category.

In the College category too, this year there is only institute-St Xavier’s College Ahmedabad as compared to two last year. PD Patel Institute of Applied Sciences Changa ranked 22nd last year has failed to make it this year. However, the ranking of St Xaviers College has improved from 57 to 52 rank.

The CEPT University Ahmedabad, that was ranked at 5th position last year, failed to secure a position in the top NIRF 30 architecture category this year. In its place, Nirma University, Ahmedabad (which is a private university) ranked 21st. CEPT University, the private university accorded a ‘Centre of Excellence’ status by the state government, was ranked 4th in NIRF 2020.

While the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) retained its first rank under the top 100 management category, Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) slipped from 55th to 58th and Pandit Deendayal Energy (formerly Petroleum) University Gandhinagar from 66th to 89th. The new entrants in this category are MICA at 42, Nirma University at 45 and Gujarat University at 99 rank.

“Nirma University has performed much better this year as compared to last. In engineering, the Institute of Technology improved its rank from 153 to 125. Similarly, the Institute of Management is at rank 45. The Institute of Architecture and Planning is the only institute from Gujarat that is part of NIRF rankings in the category. Out of four institutes that participated all have ranked,” Dr Anup K Singh, director general Nirma University told The Indian Express.