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By:

Dr. Kishore Paknikar

29 January 2025 at 8:13:00 pm

Who Really Benefits When Varsities Chase the Numbers?

The Ranking Trap - Part 2 As rankings shape academic reputations and institutional priorities, the pursuit of higher positions risks turning a measure of excellence into an end in itself. AI Generated Image The annual university rankings are announced. Some institutions celebrate, others express disappointment, and many begin examining what they must do to improve their position next year. Publicity departments prepare announcements. Administrators study the indicators. Students and parents...

Who Really Benefits When Varsities Chase the Numbers?

The Ranking Trap - Part 2 As rankings shape academic reputations and institutional priorities, the pursuit of higher positions risks turning a measure of excellence into an end in itself. AI Generated Image The annual university rankings are announced. Some institutions celebrate, others express disappointment, and many begin examining what they must do to improve their position next year. Publicity departments prepare announcements. Administrators study the indicators. Students and parents take notice. Governments, funding agencies and potential collaborators may also pay attention. An entire ecosystem responds to the movement of numbers. In the first article of this series, I argued that rankings provide an incomplete picture of educational and scientific excellence. But that raises an equally interesting question. If their limitations are widely recognised, why have they become so influential and who really benefits? The Ranking Economy For some organisations, rankings and research-performance information are commercial activities. QS publishes international university rankings and offers institutional analysis and advisory services. Elsevier supplies bibliometric databases and research analytics used by universities and research organisations. These are different activities, and providing paid services does not, by itself, establish that a ranking or database is unreliable. The more important question concerns the incentives created when institutions become increasingly dependent on numerical comparisons. As universities attach greater importance to their measured performance, demand grows for analytical tools, consultancy, benchmarking and services that help institutions understand and communicate their achievements. But commercial organisations are hardly the only beneficiaries. Universities gain prestige and publicity. Administrators acquire convenient indicators for demonstrating progress. Governments and funding agencies obtain seemingly straightforward comparisons. Students and parents receive simple guidance through a complicated educational landscape. Even the media benefit. A university's rise or fall in a ranking makes an attractive headline. Rankings survive partly because they provide something genuinely useful: simplicity. They compress enormous amounts of information into numbers that are easy to understand and communicate. While their convenience is real, their apparent completeness is not. Peer Pressure Consider what happens when a university announces that it has moved up ten places. The institution publicises the achievement. Prospective students and collaborators notice. Other universities become anxious about their own positions. Administrators study the ranking criteria more closely. Ranking organisations gain further visibility and influence. The process reinforces itself. Universities treat rankings as important because others pay attention to them. Others pay attention because universities treat them as important. Eventually, participation becomes difficult to avoid, even for institutions that recognise the limitations of the system. The influence of rankings therefore does not come solely from those who prepare them. It comes from the authority that universities, governments, funding agencies and society collectively confer upon them. Three words are frequently used as though they mean the same thing: excellence, recognition and reputation. But they do not. Excellence concerns what a scientist or institution actually achieves. Recognition concerns whether those achievements are noticed and acknowledged. Reputation concerns what others believe about their quality. A scientist may produce outstanding work without attracting much attention. An institution may retain a prestigious reputation even when its performance changes. Another may be improving rapidly while remaining relatively unknown. Reputation can outlive the evidence that originally created it. Recognition, meanwhile, may take years to catch up with emerging excellence. Consider the widely publicised Stanford–Elsevier Top 2 percent Scientists lists. A 2026 study in Scientometrics identified 123 universities across 32 countries referring to these lists in official communications. This does not mean that the scientists were undeserving, or that all universities behave similarly. It illustrates how citation-based recognition has become a source of institutional publicity. A researcher may have spent decades producing valuable work without much public acknowledgement. Appearance in a widely publicised list can suddenly generate congratulatory messages, press releases and social media attention. What changed? The scientist's work did not necessarily change overnight. Its visibility did. Recognition is valuable, but we should not confuse the ease of celebrating an achievement with the significance of the achievement itself. Reputation can be converted into opportunity. A prestigious university may attract talented students, accomplished faculty, philanthropic support, research funding and industrial partnerships. These advantages can strengthen its educational and research performance, helping it maintain or improve its position in subsequent rankings. Meanwhile, another institution may have capable teachers and imaginative researchers but inadequate laboratories, limited funding and little national visibility. Rankings need not have created these inequalities. But they can reinforce advantages that already exist. The cycle is straightforward. Achievement attracts recognition. Recognition builds reputation. Reputation attracts resources. Resources create further opportunities for achievement. Rankings can reinforce the entire process. This becomes particularly important when rankings influence public investment. Should scarce research funds go primarily to institutions with proven records, or should some be directed towards institutions capable of achieving much more if given an opportunity? There is no simple answer. Advanced research requires sophisticated facilities and experienced teams. Ignoring established capability would be irresponsible. But concentrating resources indefinitely among successful institutions could prevent promising new centres from emerging. India's Anusandhan National Research Foundation provides an instructive example through its Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research (PAIR) programme. In its first phase, eligibility to lead research networks as hubs was linked to specified NIRF positions. At the same time, the programme deliberately included less-established institutions as partners to strengthen their research capabilities. This is a constructive attempt to combine established capacity with emerging potential. It illustrates a larger policy challenge: rewarding past achievement and creating future opportunity are different objectives, and they need not always rely on identical criteria. Goodhart’s Law Rankings influence not only how institutions are perceived but also how they behave. A university seeking a higher position studies the indicators, identifies where points can be gained and adjusts its priorities. Some changes may genuinely improve teaching, research or infrastructure. Others may primarily improve its score. This is the danger captured by Goodhart’s law: when a measure becomes a target, it may lose its usefulness as a measure. If publication counts dominate evaluation, researchers may feel pressure to publish more frequently. If citations carry excessive weight, fashionable subjects may become more attractive than difficult questions whose significance is uncertain. If reputation is heavily rewarded, publicity may receive disproportionate attention. These outcomes are not inevitable. Indicators can encourage genuine improvement. The problem arises when success on the indicator becomes more important than the purpose it was intended to represent. Competition can improve performance, but science also depends on cooperation, shared facilities and the exchange of ideas. A system that rewards relative position too heavily may weaken incentives to collaborate. Perhaps the most revealing feature of rankings is that even their apparent winners may lose some freedom. A highly ranked university cannot easily disregard the system because its prestige is partly tied to it. Administrators become anxious about annual movements. Researchers celebrated for appearing on citation lists may feel pressure to remain there. Institutions that recognise the weaknesses of rankings may nevertheless continue celebrating favourable results. Refusing to participate can appear more damaging than accepting a system they do not entirely trust. The ranking trap is therefore not simply a story about commercial interests or academic vanity. It is a system of mutually reinforcing incentives that has become difficult to escape. Rankings contain useful information. The problem is the authority we have allowed them to acquire. We created rankings to recognize excellence. We now risk mistaking success in rankings for excellence itself. (The writer is an ANRF Prime Minister Professor at COEP Technological University, Pune, and former Director of the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune. Views personal.)

Caste-based Census Sparks Nationwide Debate

Writer: Darshan Solanki
Darshan Solanki
Oct 2, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Caste-based Census

Caste-based identities continue to dominate rural India, directly or indirectly shaping electoral outcomes. Many major elections are influenced by specific caste groups. After the Bihar government released the first phase of its caste-based socio-economic survey, the caste census became a hot topic. The results, backed by evidence, showed improvements in the living standards and social status of marginalised communities, both in cities and villages. With parties like the JDU and NCP backing a caste census, there is growing momentum for the government to conduct one. However, every story has two sides—joy and sorrow. Even Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, raised concerns about the caste census.

Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of being “anti-Bahujan.” The clear meaning is that his father and forefather refused to execute a caste-based census, which might have far-reaching effects and even permanently fracture India’s social fabric. This may be negative for caste-based beneficiaries. The last caste census in India was conducted in 1931 by the British government. Those times were different from the present scenario. The data was made public and became the basis for the Mandal Commission Reports and reservation policies for Other Backward Classes. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has clarified that the caste-based population count data will not be used for core politics. But the agenda for politics is always twisted and expanded.

The Central Government also joined the legal debate by filing an affidavit with the Supreme Court, leaving the matter unresolved. India’s partition, rooted in the divide-and-rule strategy, is frequently cited as a cautionary tale. Including caste in official census data could further deepen social divides. This issue has become a political pressure point, with various states pushing the Centre for action. Although the Constitution uses the term “class” instead of “caste,” the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that caste is a relevant, and at times, sole or dominant criterion for defining a backward class.

After the release of caste-based census data in Bihar, discussions around conducting similar censuses have gained momentum in states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. Karnataka, which has already conducted its own caste census, may release its data soon as well.

Notably, all these states are governed by anti-BJP parties. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also announced that Congress-ruled states have committed to carrying out caste censuses. Meanwhile, the BJP has remained silent on the matter, creating a significant roadblock.

Caste-based censuses focus on proportional representation in areas like jobs and education, with the argument that this will aid in targeted planning for the disadvantaged. However, the situation remains unclear, much like a foggy winter morning. The BJP’s stance on caste-based censuses and reservations seems different, as they fear the caste-based calculations could fragment their traditional Hindu voter base—an underlying concern for the party.

Professor Sanjay Kumar from The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, says, “Let alone the BJP; no party can openly oppose it; it is not free from danger. BJP gets a large number of votes from the OBC community, their population across the country would be around 52%. Another downside is that the caste-based censuses could disrupt the balance of socio-economic zones. Data theft is a common issue in government systems, and people may feel disconnected from their actual rights.

The moot question is that if the financial status of an ST/SC/OBC or Dalit citizen moves up by a few notches, will his social status change automatically? The lifestyle of any class will only change when the income of a particular class is changed. The actual source of income is employment. The reality is that only metro cities have enough place and space for workers. Aside from the GIDC and IT sectors, less than 30% of industries have their own designated vacancy periods. After a decade, the Jamnagar and Rajkot Corporations have opened their doors to newcomers alongside experienced staff. However, age and caste bias often operate behind the scenes. It’s important to recognise that poverty is also widespread among many upper-caste individuals, and their needs cannot be overlooked. In the overall interests of the nation, terms like SC/ST/OBC, Dalits, etc. must be deleted from the nation’s vocabulary. Every citizen should have only one classification, that of being an ‘Indian’, in the spirit of the constitution.

Last year, when the Bihar government decided to conduct a caste survey in the state, the BJP was also Nitish Kumar’s partner in the state government, and it supported it. Political expert and former professor of Tata Institute of Social Science, Pushpendra Kumar, says, “It is not that the BJP does not talk about caste. It tries to reveal the caste of the Prime Minister as well. For caste politics, the BJP also tried hard to raise the issue of Pasmanda Muslims.”

(The writer is a management professional based in Ahmedabad. Views personal.)

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