Open Letter To Smriti Irani

Former president and publisher of the Outlook group and founder of Careers360 magazine, Maheshwer Peri's open letter to Union HRD minister Smriti Irani on the recently released rankings of Indian universities and B-Schools prepared by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. 

Dear Ms. Smriti Zubin Irani, PMO India : Report Card, PMO India, Narendra Modi, 

Your effort to come up with objective rankings of our higher educational institutions is laudable. After all, Zee News declared the fraudulent IIPM as the best B-School for many years thus costing a few thousand careers and lives, just so that they could earn a few lacs. Times of India through its 'marketing features' conducted and declared some very bad universities as India's best, for a few crores more. Even the Pioneer owned by your party colleague and MP Chandan Mitra declared 'Saveetha University' as India's best University, for a few lacs more.

But your idea has been badly implemented. You had the power of the government. The information and data that people like us cannot demand, you can force them. Besides, you also have the data that has been collected for NAAC & NBA ratings. So, what explains this callous rankings with sparse information bordering on lies? 

I am now just looking at the B-School ranking. There are at least 20 good B Schools that are missing in your list. And in their place, you have included 20 B Schools, some of them undeserving of being in any merit list. In your list is a B-School which manages to get not even half of its approved intake admitted, places just 10% of its class (90% job less) at an average salary of 19,000 PM? Is that the best B-School under PM Modi's regime? I am sure you didn't go through this detail!

The Missing B School List

1. Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi
2. Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai
3. IFMR,Chennai
4. SJMSOM, IIT Mumbai
5. DMS, IIT Delhi
6. NITIE, Mumbai
7. NMIMS, Mumbai
8. Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
9. IIM Indore, Mumbai campus
10. IIFT, Delhi & Kolkata campus
11. TISS, Mumbai
12. DMS, IIT Chennai
13. VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur
14. SIBM, Pune
15. SCMHRD, Pune
16. Sydenham institute of Management Studies, Mumbai
17. DMS, IISc , Bangalore
18. IMT, Ghaziabad
19. Institute of Rural Management, Anand
20. TAPMI, Manipal

The Undeserving In Your List

1. Army Institute Of Management & Technology
2. Rajagiri College Of Social Sciences
3. Rajagiri Business School
4. IMI, Kolkatta
5. Institute Of Management Technology, Nagpur
6. Lingaya's University
7. Sri Krishna College Of Engineering And Technology-Coimbatore
8. Adhiyamaan College Of Engineering (MBA Programme)
9. Jagan Institute Of Management Studies Technical Campus
10. B.N. College Of Engineering & Technology (Bncet)
11. Entrepreneurship Development Institute Of India
12. Institute Of Management & Entrepreneurship Development-Pune
13. Rvs Technical Campus
14. University School Of Management
15. Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow
16. SSN School of Management
17. ITM University, Gwalior
18. VIT, Vellore
19. Jaipuria Inst. of Management, Noida
20. Department of Business Administration, Tezpur University.

Ma'm, you must be remembered for the good work you have done. Through this work, you will be remembered exactly for the opposite. This ranking almost sounds like a conspiracy against this government. There is no greater public perception measure than the CAT/GMAT/MAT/XAT score cutoff. There is no better output measure than employers seeking the students. What your ranking does is ridiculous on both these measures. How can you explain a public perception score of 834 for IIM (A) and 191 for IIM (B). And your people don't even know that its research is collated by 'SCOPUS' and nor 'SCPOUS'.

As a private ranking organisation, we got into it to defend the students against the likes of ZEE, PIONEER, TIMES OF INDIA etc. As we do our job with integrity, every ranking loses us at least 20 advertisers, because we do not compromise on the data. But we brave it out. We will be the happiest to give up our rankings the day we find a credible alternative. We see in you that opportunity, if only it is done with greater rigour and hard work. And, as I list the undeserving ones, I am putting a lot of my revenue at stake. But we do it in students' interest!

This ranking is bound to be abused by those who got into your list undeservingly, while the good ones will not use it for the bad company they are in. Like ZEE NEWS, PIONEER and TOI, this ranking will mislead, misinform and kill the careers of many an aspirant. In the interest of education, please withdraw your rankings. They are half baked, ill informed, MIS-directed and based on lies. They will cost the youth their careers. They will turn our 'demographic dividend' into a 'demographic nightmare'. Please withdraw the rankings and save India. 

Please. 

Warm regards

Maheshwer Peri