Staff-crunched MDU slips in NIRF rankings by 11 positions in rankings 2025

ROHTAK: The Maharishi Dayanand University has slipped from its previous 35 position to 46th in the recently announced NIRF rankings-2025 by the Ministry of Education -Government of India.Hisar's Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology has topped the state by securing 32 rank in public state universities while Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra has obtained 35th rankings.Notably, MDU had attained 35 positions in 2024, 96th in 2023, 94 in 2022, in NIRF rankings.Sources said that one of the reasons for lower rankings of state universities, especially MDU Rohtak is the shortage of teaching staff, which accounts for nearly 57% of the parameters described by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. In MDU, there should be 540 positions for faculty members across various courses. This includes 42 professors, 51 associate professors and 447 assistant professors.However, MDU currently has only 389 approved positions, out of which 174 positions are vacant. The university has 25 professors, 26 associate professors, and 123 assistant professors working, resulting in a workload of 60% on vacant positions. Sources said that in MDU university there are several departments where there is not even a single professor, associate professor, or assistant professor. Students, teaching and non-teaching associations and university authorities have already raised apprehension at different platforms that continuous shortage may pose a serious challenge to the functioning of the varsity.One of the reasons behind the better rankings of Kurukshetra University this time in NIRF rankings is the successful recruitment drive last year.Recently, the university has advertised filling of assistant professors posts but it had to be withdrawn on the orders of the chief minister's office citing unknown reasons.