MD of The Sona Group, Chocko Valliappa’s opinion on separate NIRF Ranking for private institutions featured in Education Times.
The Times of India Education Times published an article, “Should private universities have separate NIRF Ranking category?”. The article features views of some experts & academicians on the notion of separate NIRF Ranking categories for private universities. It has featured the opinion of the MD of The Sona Group, Chocko Valliappa, too.
The apparent ‘unlevel playing field’ for the heavily funded government institutions and private universities has yet again become a matter of debate among the academicians after the NIRF Rankings 2023. Out of the top 10 ranks, only 3 went to private universities, which rekindled the demand for a separate ranking system.
Chocko opined that clubbing heavily funded government institutions with private universities translates to a huge disadvantage to the students as well as the private institutions. He suggested that the NIRF Ranking committee should create a new ROI metric that takes into account the number of years needed to recover the fees paid to the private institutes during the course period, based on the students’ initial median salary of the entire class of that year.
In addition, he suggested the need for a ‘perception parity multiplier’ for tier 2 & 3 institutions to undo the gap in the perceived value of these institutions compared with heavily funded government institutions & those in tier 1 cities that are always perceived with favour.