Indian universities fall behind in global rankings
7 Sept 2017 12:22 AM IST
London: India slipped in world university rankings as its share of such institutions marginally fell from 31 to 30 in the global 1,000 list topped by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, according to a new assessment.
The annual World University Rankings released by Times Higher Education found India's flagship Indian Institute of Science fell from previous year's 201-250 band to 251-300.
This was attributed to drops in its research influence score and research income.
The Indian Institutes of Technologies in Delhi, Kanpur and Madras also dropped by at least one band.
"It is disappointing that India has declined in the THE World University Rankings amid increasing global competition.
As leading universities in other Asian territories such as China, Hong Kong and Singapore are consistently rising up the rankings, in part thanks to high and sustained levels of funding, India's flagship Indian Institute of Science moves further away from the elite top 200," said Phil Baty, Editorial Director, Global Rankings, for THE. "However, there is some really positive news in that India's overall research income and research quality has risen this year, and the country's world class university plan shows that it recognises the importance of investing in higher education, which may reverse India's decline in the rankings in future years," he said.
Indian universities performed poorly on the "internationalisation pillar", with all except one dropping places when ranked on this measurement, mainly due to other universities rising at a faster rate.
The rankings experts attributed this to the Indian government policy which "strictly limits the number of students from abroad who can study in India and prevents international scholars from being hired into long-term faculty positions".
According to THE rankings, India may recover on this metric because of its world-class university plan, which aims to provide additional funding for selected public and private universities for infrastructure and academics.
It noted while the government announced in August that it would put on hold its plan to allow foreign universities to set up campuses and award degrees in the country, it said that the 20 universities chosen for the Excellence Initiative will be given the freedom to recruit foreign faculty, admit more foreign students and collaborate with foreign institutions on education and research.
Next Story
