Lack of international faculty in Indian institutes a major contributor for poor performance in QS rankings

BENGALURU: The majority of Indian Institutes fell to lower positions in the QS World University Rankings 2021, that was released late on Wednesday.

Among the Indian institutes, IIT-Bombay, Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru and IIT-Delhi secured the first, second and third ranks respectively. However, none of the Indian institutes made it to the global top 100 positions.

The institutes were marked on basis of Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Faculty Student, Citations per Faculty, International Faculty, and International Students.

Averages scores of top Indian institutes were strongly effected fared by poor scores in International Faculty and International Students -- out of 100, IIT Bombay got a mere 18.2 and 6.9 for the two parameters respectively, while IISc Bengaluru secured 1.4 and 1.6 and IIT-Delhi got 2.3 and 1.5.

The majority of the top 20 Indian institutes saw an overall decline in their global ranking.

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Out of 21 Indian institutes that made it to the top 1000 globally, just three universities showed an improvement in rankings -- IIT Guwahati (global rank 470) , OP Jundal Global University (Global rank 651), and Savitribai Phule Pune University (Global rank 651)

IIT Hyderabad (global rank 601) made its debut on the top 1000 this year.

India's premier science research institute IISc Bengaluru has seen a downward trend in ranking since 2016 (except for 2019 whe it ranked 170). However, IISc director Anurag Kumar could not be reached for comments.

When contacted, UGC vice-chairman Bhushan Patwardhan owed the consistent drop in the rankings of the Indian Institutes to the quality of education and research.

He told TNIE we need to focus on quality adn relevance over quantity and degrees.

Even the central government's centre of excellence initiative did not salvage the institutes in the ranking.

Patwardhan said a more detailed stud yis needed to know what happened to those to (centres of excellence).

Despite the political turmoil surrounding them, both Aligarh Muslim Univerisity and Jamia Milia Islamia maintained their ranks at a consistent 801 and 751 respectively.

Thereby retaining their spots in the top 1000 globally in the annual QS World University Rankings.

Top 10 Indian institutes Name -- QS Global ranking

• IIT Bombay -- 172

• IISc -- 185

• IIT Delhi -- 193

• IIT Madras -- 275

• IIT-Kharagpur -- 314

• IIT Kanpur -- 350

• IIT Roorkee -- 383

• IIT Guwahati -- 470

• University of Delhi -- 501

• IIT Hyderabad -- 651