New Delhi, April 6 (PTI): Six programmes at India’s Institutes of Eminence (IoEs) have managed to break into the top 100 in the world in the latest ‘QS Rankings by Subject’ released on Wednesday.
India’s highest-ranked university overall is the Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences for Dentistry which debuts at the 18th position while the Indian School of Mines (ISM) University, Dhanbad, also a new entrant, is the second-highest ranked varsity.
Four-and-a-half-years after the inception of the IoE scheme, its varsities have gained moderate ground on the global stage, London based QS said.
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Counting only the eight declared public IoEs, four have increased their representation among the global top 100, while two programmes have fallen out of the top 100 for their academic discipline over the last year.
In total, 35 Indian programmes achieved top 100 positions – 10 more than the 2021 edition of the tables.
Five public IoEs which have figured in the top 100 include the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) which has jumped from 113 to 98 in mechanical engineering while IIT Madras now ranks in the 51-100 band for civil and structural engineering (previously 101-150), IIT Delhi ranks 92 for chemical engineering (previously 101-150 band), IIT Bombay is at the 99th spot in materials science (101-150 band previously) and IISc for physics and astronomy ranks 91, up from 112.
The O P Jindal Global University, also an IoE, has been placed at the 70th position for Law.
Top institutes in India, both from the public and private sectors, were declared as IoEs by the education ministry in 2018.
Under the IoE scheme, public institutes received funds from the government to develop their research infrastructure and faculty and private ones were given freedom from regulators, so as to catapult these institutes to world rankings.
The 2022 QS World University Rankings by subject provides independent data on the performance of 274 programmes at 61 Indian higher education institutions, across 37 of the 51 academic disciplines ranked in this edition.
“One of the biggest challenges faced by India is educational – providing high-quality tertiary education in the face of exploding demand: this much was recognised by 2020’s NEP, which set the ambitious target of a 50 per cent gross enrolment ratio by 2035,” said Ben Sowter, QS research director.
“It should therefore provide some reassurance that the number of Indian programmes featuring across our 51 subject rankings has increased this year – from 233 to 274 – where it had been decreasing previously,” Sowter said.
“However, QS also notes that several programmes at India’s privately-run IoE have made progress this year, demonstrating the positive role that well-regulated private provision can have in enhancing India’s higher education sector,” he added.
The rankings, compiled by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, provide an independent comparative analysis of the performance of 15,200 individual university programmes, taken by students at 1,543 universities which can be found at 88 locations in the world, across 51 academic disciplines and five broad faculty areas.
They are a part of the annual QS World University Rankings portfolio, which was consulted over 147 million times in 2021, and covered 96,000 times by media and institutions.
Among the four IoEs achieving top 50 ranks, IIT Madras (30th for petroleum engineering), is India’s highest-ranking public IoE.
Apart from breaking into top 100 in physics, astronomy and mechanical engineering, IISc also retained top 100 ranks for materials science (76) and chemistry (81).
The University of Delhi ranks 41 for development studies.
IIT Delhi is ranked in 14 subject tables, which include in top 100 positions in civil and structural engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, computer science and mechanical engineering.
Two Indian universities also achieved top 100 ranks in business and management — IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad — while India’s most-improved entry is in pharmacy and pharmacology, with the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali rising over a hundred places year on year.
Public IoE remains significantly better-represented in the rankings than private ones. Of the four private universities already declared as IoE, one does not appear in the subject rankings – Shiv Nadar University.
QS also noted that India remains at the forefront of global environmental science research.
Data from QS’s research partners at Elsevier, which contributes to the QS World University Rankings by Subject, indicates that in 2021, India ranked 5th in terms of its research footprint in this field – behind only Germany, China, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Reflecting these contributions, eight Indian universities are featured in QS’s Environmental Sciences 2022 ranking, with IIT Bombay breaking into the top 150 and IIT Kharagpur stable in the 151-200 band.
The two new entries in this discipline are Banaras Hindu University (401-450) and Anna University (451-460).
