8th Indian Universities in Asia top 100 in Times higher education #Asia University rankings

Other Indian universities in the top half of rankings include IIT Bombay (43rd), IIT Kharagpur (51), IIT Delhi (60), IIT Madras (62), IIT Roorkee (65), IIT Guwahati (joint 80th ) as well as Jadavpur University in joint 84th place. IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar told that India’s better showing is the result of institutes’ better research profiles as well as the fact that they are now providing data in a much more systematic way. “India is on an upward trajectory. We’ll keep doing better every year,” he said. Narayanan Ramaswamy, head, education and skill development, KPMG in India, shared his views. “Indian institutes are now acknowledging that global rankings are here to stay.

They are sharing information properly and even planning the process in advance. They are also making an effort to understand the nuances of various parameters in the rankings and working on them,” he said. “This is just the beginning. Fundamentally, our institutes are very strong. They deserve to move up much higher in global rankings.” However, more needs to be done. Khakhar reckons one has to focus on parameters such as getting more international students and faculty into the system to move further up the order. Incidentally, the IITs have also decided to hold their entrance tests in Singapore, the UAE, Ethiopia and SAARC nations from next year, to select foreign students for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

“The nation still has a long way to go to compete with Asia’s leading university nations such as in China, Japan and South Korea, and scores particularly weakly on internationalisation,” said Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education rankings, in a statement.

He, however, stressed on some positives, saying, “The government’s move to select 20 institutions across public and private sectors for special funding and special report to help compete on the global stage is very good news.” In the overall list, National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University take the first and second places — this is the first time that Singaporean institutions have taken the two top slots. China’s Peking University is in joint second spot, followed by the University of Hong Kong and China’s Tsinghua University at fourth and fifth places, respectively.

Twenty two countries — up from 14 last year — have been represented in the rankings, which have been expanded to cover 200 universities. The expansion of the Asia University Rankings has now allowed a greater number of institutions in the region, not just from India, but also from Pakistan and Bangladesh, to be recognised. “In my 20 years of working in the higher education sector, it has never been as clear to me that the balance of power is shifting from the west to the east,” said Baty reports by ET,