By Md Mustafa
Recently, National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) released its most awaited ranking of top universities in India. According to its website, its framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country since 2016, when its first-ever rankings of institutions were released. Since then it releases a ranking of top universities in India annually.
Jamia Millia Islamia University has improved its ranking by two places in the same category of NIRF ranking in the last year and has secured 10th position in the university category and this year, the list was topped by Indian Institute of Science.
Why is this year’s ranking special for Jamia Millia Islamia University?
This year, the improvement in the ranking of Jamia Millia Islamia is very important for students, teachers, staff and of course for the Vice-Chancellor for two reasons.
One reason is that this year Jamia is celebrating its 100 years of glorious past of its foundation (i.e. 1920). It was established in the direct response to Non-Cooperation Movement to inculcate nationalism among Muslim youth besides providing modern education. The movement was launched by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920 with the aim of self-governance by boycotting British services and goods.
Since its inception, it is contributing to nation-building by providing education at a reasonable cost as well as promoting scientific temperament among youths as envisaged by our constitution in article 51-A.
The second reason is that it has been the epicentre of one of the biggest protests in the country against Citizenship Amendment Act after police entered into the campus and used excessive force against peacefully protesting students, what they believed it to be textually and contextually discriminatory and violative of the fundamental right of equality and principle of secularism laid down in Indian constitution.
Since 13 December, the campus has seen regular disruptions and remained volatile throughout November and December. It started with protests against CAA followed by a police crackdown and finally the lockdown. All these circumstances forced the University authorities to prepone winter vacation and the spread of coronavirus resulted in preponement of summer vacations. Thus, we saw fewer classes and students lost at least one semester.
Despite all hurdles, what we have achieved is something that makes all of us proud with the stellar performance of the university in NIRF ranking.
The result we have got is not due to one day of hard work but due to continuous planning, exemplary leadership of V.C, the indomitable spirit of students and teachers in one direction. That was how we all contributed to improving the ranking of this prestigious university, which has been shaped by the national movement of India.
The commitment and hard work of all stakeholders that ultimately bore fruit resulted in the improvement of ranking in the university category.
Way forward
Our performance has already been acknowledged by finding a place in the top ten universities. However, growing unemployment in youth could be arrested by opening more and more vocational courses in the campuses of the universities across the country, which in turn will provide a skilful workforce to industries that lead to the achievement of 5 trillion USD GDP targets by 2024 especially given the slowdown of China’s GDP growth in the year 2019, which was the slowest since 1990.
MD Mustafa is pursuing MA(Social Exclusion Inclusive Policy) at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. He can be reached at: [email protected]