Calcutta, Jadavpur University see sharp drops in NIRF ranking 2025; what’s gone wrong?

Calcutta University has slipped sharply in the NIRF Ranking 2025. This year, it was placed in the 47th position in the overall category, a steep fall from its 26th rank last year. Jadavpur University – at the top among state universities and holding its ninth position among universities – has slipped to the 18th position in NIRF engineering ranking 2025, down from 12th last year.

The decline has raised serious questions about leadership, staffing, and the overall management of West Bengal’s top institutions, among the best in the country. The National Institutional Ranking Framework’s India Rankings 2025 were announced last week.

Teachers point out that while students and faculty are trying their best, the lack of leadership, shortage of staff and funds, and absence of a clear vision are pulling the universities down. They also feel that “hurried” reforms like the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and political tussles between the state and the centre resulted in this slide.

For others, the problem is in the correct submission of data to the NIRF. Sankhayan Chowdhury, professor in Calcutta University’s department of computer science, believes it is due to the lack of a modern system to collect and store information. “What I believe, and what I have seen in the past few years, is that we don’t have a central modern methodology for collecting data. Data is being asked from departments, and depending on that data they do the ranking. Today, a huge university like Calcutta University, which has 68 departments, does not have a central data accumulation system. This is not acceptable and that is where things are going wrong,” he explained.

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NIRF engineering, universities ranking

A quick look at the scores assigned by the NIRF to each institution for ranking – CU in the universities and overall categories and Jadavpur in engineering ranking – shows decline in total scores on nearly every parameter, except outreach and inclusivity, on which both have scored slightly higher than last year.

The NIRF scores institutions on five parameters – teaching, learning and resources (TLR); research and professional practice (RP), graduate outcomes (GO);outreach and inclusivity (OI) and peer perception (PP).

The TLR section now includes indicators related to the National Education Policy 2020 – online education (OE) and "multiple entry/exit, Indian knowledge system and regional languages (MIR)”. CU has seen its score on this drop from 5.57 last year to 2.56.

Calcutta University’s fall in the “universities category” has been even more drastic – from a top-20 position of 18 last year to 39th in NIRF Ranking 2025. It has lost points on everything except OI. The change in scores for ranking in the “Overall” and “Universities” categories of NIRF 2025 are in the table below.

NIRF University and Overall Rankings: Calcutta University’s scores in 2024 and 2025

Much smaller than Calcutta University and unitary, Jadavpur University has fared better. In the overall ranking, it has slipped only one place, from rank 17 last year to 18 this year.

But in the engineering category of NIRF, it has fallen out of the top 15 in the country. The university scored slightly more in “teaching, learning and resources” (TLR) but took a beating on perception. Incidentally, “peer perception” scores are not based on the university’s own disclosures but external surveys conducted by the NIRF. The changes in its scores are as shown below.

NIRF Engineering Ranking: Jadavpur University scores in 2024 and 2025

NIRF ranking and faculty shortage

At the universities themselves, teachers blame the chronic understaffing of departments and even administrations for the slip.

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Highlighting the shortage of teachers across departments, Chowdhury said, “CU has around or a little more than 750 sanctioned posts and at this moment the number of faculties is less than 50 percent.” He compared the situation with Jadavpur University, “Their teaching strength has also reduced, but still, they have a significant number of teachers compared to us.”

The shortage is there across departments . “In the Computer Science department, there are 16 sanctioned posts and at the moment there are seven teachers only. In management, there are one or two teachers. Polymer science has only four teachers. Applied optics and photonics has nine posts but only three teachers,” he said.

Calcutta University has come to a point where staff shortage may be hampering the gathering and submission of accurate data. A senior professor, who requested not to be named and also holds an administrative role in a college, said, “The administrative staff of Calcutta University, the decision-making body, is not there. The vacancies have remained for the past 10-14 years. There has been no election in the university for the last 15 years. The democratic structure of the university is not there anymore.” Key positions have temporary staff in them.

“The deans are temporary, also the VC,” the teacher continued. “Previously there would be meetings of the higher education committee with ‘dean elections’ as agenda, but now things are totally different.”

Chowdhury suspects data is getting lost in transmission. Without a centralised system of data gathering, such exercises are handled through a deluge of emails and communications going back and forth. “If the university does not keep up with technological developments in today’s date, then I am 100 percent sure only partial data will go. We can fall, but not this drastic fall,” he said.

Calcutta University victim of politics

Professors also point to the fact that University of Calcutta has been running without a permanent vice chancellor for several years which has impacted its functioning. “We have not had a permanent vice chancellor for so long. Only when we get a permanent VC and a pro-VC, things will fall into place. Presently, all are temporary,” said Sanjib Kar, head of the department of agricultural chemistry and soil science, CU

Santanu Paul, professor in CU’s botany department, concurred. “So many faculty positions are now vacant. A VC has to give full time. In absence of VC, the offices are non-working. Only day-to-day work is going on.” The VC is responsible for making key academic and administrative decisions, planning long-term strategies, and ensuring that funds, research, and faculty requirements are managed on time.

The vacant VC post is the result of the conflict between the state government and the union government-appointed Governor, who is the Chancellor of all state universities. Some version of this has played out in every state where a party in opposition to the BJP is in power.

After a protracted tussle, a committee led by ex-Chief Justice of India, UU Lalit was appointed to decide on the appointment of the VCs of 15 universities in West Bengal. “The Chief Justice had come and selected three candidates for the post of VC, but the Chancellor was not for it. Next time, again some interviews were done and selection needs to be done. It’s all because of the tussle between the government and the Chancellor,” said Kar.

The absence of a VC has had a direct impact on recruitment and staffing.

“We should have around 800 faculties, of which only 50 percent are there. There are many departments which have zero faculty,” Kar added, underlining the severity of the faculty crunch. “Research activities are suffering. The only permanent post which is not vacant is that of the registrar. Many instruments are required and several need repair. These are necessary for even the minimum level of research.”

Jadavpur University NIRF rank and funds

Jadavpur University is ranked at number 1 among state public universities.

“In Jadavpur University, I think teachers do enjoy unfettered academic autonomy for research, despite the fact that the central government is deliberately blocking promised funds. We continue only because of our own love for research and academics,” said Monojit Mandal, professor and chairperson for English syllabus at Jadavpur University.

But the university’s engineering ranking has been a cause for worry. Partha Pratim Roy, professor physics and general secretary of Jadavpur University Teachers Association explained that a main reason would be the lack of funds.

“We have a huge shortage of funds. The state government is not giving funds, even maintenance is not supported, and the central government is also not giving funds. They didn’t give funds for the Institute of Eminence. We have lots of infrastructural problems right now,” he said. Expensive research instruments are in disrepair with no funds to fix them. “This is directly related to laboratory teaching in different engineering labs,” he pointed out.

Roy, too, blamed politics for the sharp drop in Jadavpur’s perception score and fall in placements. “Sometimes there are problems related to students, and sometimes political parties attack and criticise the university. That may create problems for us in perception,” he explained.

He further said that the median salary of the students has also gone down compared to earlier times. “In West Bengal there is no industry, so not many companies are coming here. That affects placements and salaries compared to engineering colleges in other states,” he said. “Compared to our poor funding and weak administrative structure, it is extremely good that we are still ranked No. 1 among state public universities. This shows the cooperation of the faculty and staff, who are doing everything despite the odds,” he added.

Mandal agreed, saying that the drop could be due to incomplete data sharing and perception affected by the university’s long history of student movements and agitations.

Kar was equally critical of the changes brought about by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 which, he felt, has destabilised the education system. “Now, everything is getting muddled up just like in the USA and not what we have been following, that is the UK system,” he said.