A meeting was held at UT Secretariat Building to review the ranking of Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University) in the recently released National Institutional Ranking Framework, India Rankings 2022 by Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education Government of India. The meeting was conducted under the chairmanship of honourable Dharam Pal, IAS and Advisor to the Administrator, Ms. Purva Garg, Education Secretary, Sh. Amandeep Singh Bhatti, Director Technical Education, Mr. Rajiv Kalia, Chairman CII, Mr. Suman Preet Singh, Director CII and a presentation on analysis of NIRF ranking of PEC was presented by Prof. (Dr.) Baldev Setia, Director PEC.
The presentation started with Prof. (Dr.) Baldev Setia, Director PEC apprising the members of the NIRF Ranking Process, the parameters affecting the ranking and the duration and period under record. As a part of this the Director presented a comparative analysis of PEC with top ten institutes in the country, other top institutes of the region and a micro comparison of various parameters of PEC during the last five years was also made.
In the analysis it was found that the institute has a shortage of faculty. Realising the fact that faculty is the single most important factor which influences all the parameters of the ranking, the Director mentioned that PEC has already started to work towards the shortcoming and has started regular faculty recruitments for 58 vacant positions for which 1973 applications were received in recent times.
Summarizing the presentation and envisioning a bright future of the institute, the Director also presented certain reforms, steps and initiatives that are being taken by PEC to improve its ranking. It includes organising national and international conferences, workshops for the students on a regular basis, revised course curriculum of MTech programmes to have a more focused approach towards core subjects. Faculty members are also financially incentivised to conduct more research and publish more papers. To promote research a Central research facility is being built for the students and faculty. The institute is also focusing on revival of existing centers, strengthening of the physical infrastructure by expanding hostel facilities for students and residential facilities for the faculty. The chain agreed to take up the issues of Jawalamukhi Hostel so as to ease the situation of student accommodation. The Institution has also decided to go for external peer review.
A request was made to increase the sanctioned strength of faculty so as to attain the minimum desired faculty student ratio of 1:15. The Administration agreed to pursue the issue with the Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI.
Further it was decided to have a NIRF Project Management Unit (PMU) in the department of higher education and technical education for regularly monitoring the NIRF Ranking. Also NIRF Cell will be setup in all HEIs and Technical institutes
