New Delhi, October 07: The officials of QS World Ranking have said that to improve their international rankings, Indian universities and higher education institutions need to start blowing their own trumpet and work on “globally relevant” indicators. Based in London, the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) and Times Higher Education (THE) are the most prominent higher-education surveys in the world.
Best Indian institutes not among top 100
Western institutions such as Oxford University and MIT continue to hold the top positions in the top 100 in these lists, whereas even the most celebrated Indian institutes, including the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have consistently failed to establish themselves among top names.
“There are some excellent universities in India in terms of academic output and research credibility but how many global students know about it? The very purpose of having a world university ranking is to allow foreign students to be able to just pick up the ranking and see which institution is worth going to and what is offered where. Hence, Indian institutions must thrive to be excellent at globally relevant indicators,” Ashwin Fernandes, from QS Rankings, has been quoted as saying to a news agency.
QS Regional Director expresses disappointment
“India has a huge amount of potential in becoming a leader of global higher education; however, it is disappointing to see the country fall out in the rankings table every year, with only a small number of institutions registering progress,” added Fernandes, who is the Regional Director for QS Intelligence Unit in Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.
This year, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and IISc Bangalore made their way to the top 200 in the prestigious world university rankings released by QS. However, none of the Indian institutions found a spot in the top 200 list in THE ranking.
“Indian universities also need to learn to blow their own trumpets. The fact that IISc Bangalore has produced two ISRO chiefs is not known to many and unless they take the word abroad the score on academic reputation, a criteria with heavy weightage in QS ranking will be low. And by publicity, I do not mean institutions should hire advertisement slots on prime time television or place huge hoardings, there should be more networking globally. Connecting with alumni, outreach programmes, summer schools, winter schools, all these things need to be done” Fernandes told the media in an interview.