Gagan Deep Sharma writes: Celebrating Indian universities’ rise in global rankings

News: In the recently announced QS World Universities Rankings 2023, Indian higher educational institutions have done their best to date.

Seven universities have made a grand entry this year, while 17 universities ascended and 17 others stood unwavering on their previous year’s position as the world’s top higher educational institutions.

The 20% increase in new entrants has pushed India up the ladder.

What are the QS World rankings?

It is the world’s largest and most remarkable annual survey of academic opinion, the QS rankings evaluate a university’s performance by measuring the sentiments of academic stakeholders over six performance indicators —

a) academic reputation, b) employer reputation, c) faculty/student ratio, d) citations per faculty (CpF), e) international faculty ratio, and f) international student ratio.

The globalisation of education has transformed the way institutional excellence is measured. Hence, the elite status of world-class universities now also relies on international recognition from university rankings.

How have the Indian educational institutions fared in the latest rankings?

The 19th edition of the rankings draws a stronger picture of India.

– Nine institutions of eminence are ranked in the top 1,000, five in the top 500, and three in the top 200.

– In the prestigious band of the top 200 are the Indian Institute of Science (155), IIT-Bombay at 172nd, and IIT-Delhi at 174th globally, moving up 31, five, and 11 places respectively from the previous year’s score. IIT-Indore debuts at an impressive 396th rank globally among the new entrants.

The University of Madras lands in the 541-550 band, while Chandigarh University (800-1000) is the youngest university to secure a spot on the list.

It is historic that after a gap of 10 years, all Indian institutions in the top 500 have improved their ranking.

What are the parameters on which Indian univ have improved?

Indian universities have established a significant global standing in the QS World Rankings 2023, with the highlight being

– the improved faculty/student ratio

– citation per faculty

– international student admissions

– male/female student enrollment ratio.

All this has happened due to the conscious efforts of the government towards improving the standards of higher education.

Way forward

Despite the improvement, there are also a number of areas that call for immediate attention of the government.

– State expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP

– India’s spending on research has been low for decades

– Issues of mobility of international faculty and students.

– Lastly, India doesn’t have education penetration to the last mile. This is something which the government aims to rectify through its target of achieving a 50 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio by the year 2035 against 26.3 per cent in 2018, as envisaged in the NEP.

The government should address these issues to make India’s education system strong, inclusive, and equitable.

Source: This post is based on the article “Gagan Deep Sharma writes: Celebrating Indian universities’ rise in global rankings” published in The Indian Express on 10th June 22.