Hit by faculty shortage, AU’s NIRF rankings take a beating

VISAKHAPATNAM: Andhra University has been consistently slipping in its national institutional ranking framework (NIRF) ranking. The 97-year-old institution’s ranking in the overall category dropped by almost 50 notches in the last five years, from 29th place in 2019 to 36th position in 2020 to 48th place in 2021 to 71st rank in 2022 to 76th place in 2023.

Even in the universities’ category, the ranking of this top state university – in terms of the number of students and programmes and legacy - slid to 43 in 2023 (from 16 in 2019 to 19 in 2020 to 24 in 2021 to 36 in 2022).

Based on the scores that it attained in different parameters in the NIRF 2023, AU has been bogged down by its poor numbers in the ‘teaching, learning, and resources’ (TLR) and ‘research and professional practice’ (RPC) categories. These two parameters account for 60% weightage of the total score. The institutions, which have made it to the top-50 in the ‘overall’ category of NIRF 2023, have scored more than 40% in RPC and 60% in TLR. AU could score only 54% in TLR, whereas it was a mere 26% in RPC, sending its ranking only southwards. The TLR score of AU was 69% in the 2019 edition of the NIRF.

Factors like severe faculty crunch and the limited research productivity as a consequence seem to have been clearly impacting the institute in the NIRF scores. There has been no faculty recruitment for about the last 15 years. Hundreds of faculty are retiring every year.

Several departments have no single permanent faculty to head even the Board of Studies – which takes care of exams, course setting, evaluation process, etc. for the campus colleges as well as for the affiliated colleges. Data presentation and management may need to be further improved to compete with the growing number of private institutions.

The existing faculty of AU is only some one-fifth of the required positions. Even several key departments have been precariously positioned with one or two faculty running the show.

AU registrar Prof V Krishna Mohan said the University has topped among all the state universities in the NIRF 2023. “While AU secured 43rd position in the universities’ category, AU College of Engineering got 94th place. The institute has taken up several developmental activities in the last four years, both on academic, research, and infrastructural fronts. The university set up an incubation hub, namely A-Hub. This helped the university to get a place in the 11-50 band in the innovation category of the rankings,” said Prof Krishna Mohan.


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