QUACQUARELLI SYMONDS RANKINGS
17 Indian Varsities Among Asia’s Top 300
BHU & Panjab Univ among 6 Indian institutes to enter the list this year. The Indian Institutes of Technology lead the way with IIT Delhi holding on to its 38th position like last year while IIT Bombay dropped two spots to 41
OUR BUREAU NEW DELHI
Seventeen Indian universities have made it to the Asia Pacific rankings of ranking agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) this year compared to 11 last year. Ranking agency QS released the rankings, which include Asia’s top 300 universities, in association with non-profit organisation The Indian Centre for Assessment & Accreditation (ICAA)in NewDelhion Monday. Six Indian institutes have made an entry to the list. Banaras Hindu University, Panjab University, Manipal University, Amity University, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology made it to the Asia rankingsfor thefirsttimethis year. “There has been a considerable improvement in the number of Indian universities making it to the Asia rankings this year. This reflects increasing engagement between Indian institutions and ranking agencies,” said John O Leary, member of the executive board, QS World University Rankings. “The ones at the top are IITs which are close to where they were.Going up or down by a few positions does not signify a big change in performance. The increase in numbers is a good sign and one I expect to continue,” he added. As in the previous editions of the rankings, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) led the way. IIT Delhi held on to its 38th position like last year, ahead of IIT Bombay which was placed at 41. Five other IITs featured in the top 100, led by Kanpur and Madras just outside the top 50 at 52 and 53, respectively.
“The IITs have a great reputation among graduateemployers, and now produce a relatively high volume of research,butitis not yethaving a significant impact in terms of citations,” said QS head of research Ben Sowter. “India’s improved strength in depth is a sign of progress, but there is a long way to go before the IITs can compete with the very best institutionsin Asia,”he added.
The annual Asia rankings of QS are a regional variant of their global world university rankings which have been published annually since 2004. The Asia rankings are based on responses from 43,000 Asian and international academics, 8,000 Asian andinternationalemployers, and evaluation of 491 institutions. While academic reputation is given 30% weightage for ranking institutions, student/faculty ratio accounts for 20% of the overall criteria followed by papers per faculty, citations per paper, employer reputation and internationalisation at 15%, 15%, 10% and 5%, respectively. Among traditional universities, University of Delhi took the lead at 81, having slipped one place since last year. It is ranked in the top 25 in Asia by employers and the top 40 by academics, but was found lacking in some other indicators like low levels of international faculty and student exchange which brought down its overall ranking. On the other hand, University of Calcutta ranked highly on student exchange, coming second in Asia for outbound exchange and 52nd for inbound.
TV Mohandas Pai, chairman of ICAA stated: “Inadequate policies are holding back Indian institutions. For instance, IIT Delhi could have been in the top 20 on a number of parameters but lost out as it did not have international faculty members and had inadequate international students. We’re not giving our institutions adequate freedom and not allowing them to be global in their approach. We need changes in regulatory frameworks to address these issues.”
ICAA is also planning to launch India-specific rankings by 2016 in association with QS. “This is to create interest in the Indian institutions to participate in global rankings and understand the various parameters of the ranking process. We are deliberating theframeworkfor launching India rankings,” said A Jeyaprakash, vice-chairman, ICAA. Premier IITs and other Indian universities failed to make it to the top 200 global QS rankings of world's leading universities releasedlast year. ICAA has been trying to fill existing lacunae by getting Indian institutes and ranking agencies together and has a goal of assisting in the inclusion of five Indian universities in the top 200 world university rankings by 2025.
