Indian universities slip in ranks globally, IISc no more in top 200

IIT BOMBAY IS IN THE 351400 BAND , IIT DELHI, IIT KANPUR, IIT KHARAGPUR AND IIT ROORKEE COME UNDER 501600 BAND

No India University or institution of higher education figures in the top 250 in the latest Times Higher Education’s ranking, triggering concerns about the falling standards in the country and its possible fallout on job prospects.

In the 14th annual edition of Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings – which ranks the top 1,000 universities from 77 countries – performance of Indian centres of learning has deteriorated, with its share of universities falling from 31 to 30 in the top 1,000 and its flagship institution, IISc, falling from the 201-250 band to 251-300.

IIT Bombay is in the band 351400, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee come under 501-600 band. Delhi university, Aligarh Muslim University, BHU, IIT Guwahati, IIT Madras, Indian School of Mines, Jadavpur University, Punjab university all come under 601-800 band.

Experts in India cautioned the government over the dip. “15 years ago at least a few IITs and IIM figured among the top in the overall ranking... Singapore, Korea, Malaysia are performing much better. Our system has collapsed and their system has come up. A study by FICCI shows that 60% Indian engineers can’t even get a job. Government is not even aware of what they want to do and fix the system,” said TSR Subramanian, former cabinet secretary who drafted the National Education policy, which is being re-drafted by another committee.

“IISc has fallen largely due to drops in its research influence score and research income...” the rankings report said.

Globally, the University of Oxford retains first place, the University of Cambridge climbs two places to second, overtaking California Institute of Technology and Stanford University, both at a joint third.

Phil Baty, editorial director, Global Rankings at Times Higher Education (THE), said: “As leading universities in other Asian territories such as China...are consistently rising up the rankings, in part thanks to high and sustained levels of funding, India’s flagship the Indian Institute of Science moves further away from the elite top 200”.

However, some were quick to dismiss the report. “It is just a statistical thing I don’t think there is any such decline... As far as faring poorly in terms of internationalization is concerned we have always fared poorly in respect of the number of foreign students studying here. It is not a serious problem and shouldn’t be viewed so,” said Professor Dheeraj Sanghi, former dean of IIT Kanpur.