New Delhi: India’s poor show in world university ranking continues with just four institutions from the country making it to the top 400 and none to the top 200 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking for 2014-15.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the US is the top-ranked university in the world.
According to THE, the British ranking agency, Panjab University and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, were the best placed universities in India with a rank in the 276-300 grouping. After 200, THE does not award individual ranking but groups institutions in blocks.
“It is good news that India now has two universities in the world’s top 300, compared to just one last year, thanks to the participation for the first time in the rankings this year of the Indian Institute of Science, which can now be included in the analysis after starting to admit undergraduate students,” said Phil Baty, editor of THE World University Rankings.
“IISc joins Panjab University in the 276-300 group, but it should be a cause for serious concern that a country of India’s size, growing economic strength and great intellectual history, does not yet have a top-200 entrant, and does not seem to be making enough progress up the rankings,” Baty added.
Though Panjab University scores better than IITs, its ranking has fallen from 226-250 bracket last year. Lalit Bansal, dean (research) at Panjab University, said: “It’s a serious concern that our university has fallen in the ranking but it does not reflect poorly on our quality. We are still number one along with IISc in (India) in the THE ranking.”
He added that his university hasn’t analysed why it consistently outdoes the IITs in the ranking, and said he couldn’t comment on this.
India’s continued poor performance in educational rankings comes in the background of the country’s government working towards addressing this issue over the past 18 months. India’s human resource development ministry held discussions on improving the ranking of Indian universities and asked the IITs to work towards this. It had also a meeting with THE in Delhi in 2013.
“The world rankings are extremely competitive, as many countries put serious resources into improving the global profile and performance of their universities as part of their economic growth plans, and India needs to ensure it does not fall too far behind,” Baty said.
The human resource development ministry has also asked the IITs to create an India-centric ranking system, said an HRD ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mint couldn’t independently confirm this move.
Globally, Caltech retains its place at the top for the fourth consecutive year, with Harvard University retaining second place. University of Oxford slips one place from joint second to third, Stanford University holds fourth place and the University of Cambridge moves up two places to fifth. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is at sixth, Princeton University (seventh) and the University of California, Berkeley, is at eighth place. Imperial College, London, and Yale University (sharing ninth place) complet
