After 6 IITs boycotted its global rankings for the second year in a row, Times Higher Education (THE) said it would adjust its performance evaluation methodology to address the concerns of Indian Institutes of Technology. In 2020, IITs Delhi, Bombay, Guwahati, Madras, Roorkee, Kanpur and Kharagpur refused to participate in the rankings, citing “transparency in their ranking process”. IIT Guwahati, however, participated in the ranking this year.
“Following the dialogue in 2019, we have continuously engaged in public debate to ensure that they are constantly informed about the progress of the WUR 3.0 methodology, and we held a special webinar on this issue with IIT last year in 2021. We also revisited this at the India Forum earlier this year in February 2022 about our future plans to adjust the methodology, address the concerns of the IITs and explore the implications of our methodological changes,” Ritin Malhotra, Regional Director, South Asia, THE told ThePrint .
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After the latest ranking in which IIT Delhi participated, former director V Ramgopal Rao said he was not happy with the performance. “Our best institutions in India can be among the top 50 in any of the World University Rankings,” he said, highlighting several gaps in the matrix of international ranking agencies. Half of the points are based on reputation. Of the total, 40 percent is given to academic reputation and 10 percent to employer reputation.
IITs also consistently rank low in the category of foreign faculty and students. “An IIT job is a government job. The recruitment of foreign faculty continues to be fraught with policy challenges at all levels,” Rao said. With the introduction of EWS quotas, 2,500 additional students have been admitted in the last two years, Rao said, but finding a “quality faculty” to match these students is a slow process, he said.
Last year, when announcing the NIRF rankings, the education minister said he disagreed with the global rankings because he believed they placed too much weight on the “perspective” matrix.
Not just international rankings, Rao also proposed a parallel NIRF international ranking that would compare India’s top 50 institutions with the world’s top 50 institutions, he said, adding that he believed it would set higher goals for India’s educational institutions. “It’s time to create a new gate. Otherwise, it will be some musical chairs upstairs and a zero-sum game for the country,” he said.
The recently released World University Rankings 2022 shows that the Indian Institute of Science has emerged as the highest ranked Indian institution in the 301-399 category. A total of 75 educational institutions from India participated in the ranking this year. A total of 7 IITs made the list including IIT Ropar (501-600), IIT Indore (601-800), IIT Gandhinagar ((801-1000), IIT Patna (801-1000), IIT Bhubaneswar (1001-1200) . ), IIT Guwahati (1001-1200) and IIT Mandi (1001-1200).
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