OU makes it to list of top institutions

27 Indian varsities in top 300

One university from Telangana and three from Andhra Pradesh have grabbed spots in the recently released Times Higher Education rankings for top 300 universities in 'BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) and Emerging Economics'.

From Telangana, Osmania University has figured in the list and from Andhra Pradesh, Sri Venkateshwara University-Tirupati, Acharya Nagarjuna University-Guntur and Andhra University-Vizag.

Last year, the rankings were given for top 200 universities in which only Andhra University had figured from the two states and was ranked 193. This year its rank fell to 201-250 slot where it shares the spot with OU and ANU.

27 universities from India made it to the top 300 as compared to 52 from China. Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore grabbed the best spot from India as it was ranked 14th, up from last year's 16th.

Falling quality of research, poor reputation and poor PhD to student ratio are a cause of concern for OU.

The ranking is scored on five main parameters, Teaching which is given 30% weightage, Research (30%), Citations (20%), International Outlook and Industry Income which are given 10% weightage each.

SVU scored higher than OU in Citations, Teaching and International Outlook categories.

While SVU scored 11.2 in Citations OU scored only 7.3. In citations it is checked as to how many number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally.

In Teaching, SVU scored 34.3 whereas OU scored 29.6. In teaching category, heavy weightage is given to 'Academic Reputation Survey' conducted by the Times Higher Education which examines "perceived prestige of institutions in teaching". Apart from this, weightage is also given to the PhD to student ratio and how much percentage of staff has been awarded PhD. Lack of recruitment in OU has left the university with only a handful of staff with doctorates as around 50 professors retire from OU annually.

In International Outlook where international to domestic student ratio, international to domestic staff ratio and international collaborations are scored, SVU scored 15.5 whereas OU scored 9.1.

THREE UNIVERSITIES from Andhra Prades also among 300 from BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) and Emerging Economics.