In total, there are six Indian universities in the top 500 in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE), world university ranking 2020 as against five in the 2019 rankings.
New Delhi | The new world university ranking came as a mixed bag for India with no university featured in the top 300 for the first time. Since 2012, through the total number of entries from the country went up from 49 in 2018 to 56 this year. The high point for India was the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar making it to the top 350 on debut in the list. It now is the joint Indian toppers with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In total, there top 500 in this year’s Times Higher Education(THE) world university Rankings 2020 as against five in the 2019 ranking. Overall, the University of Oxford continues to lead the pack for the fourth consecutive year.
With the increase in the number of Indian Universities in the Overall. 1,300- university list from 92 countries, Indian is the fifth most – represented nation in the rankings with 56 institutions. In all 10 Indian Universities which participated for the time made it to the global ranking list of 1,300 universities.
The fall of IISC from the 251-300 to 301-350 cohort this the year is attributed to a significant dip in its citation impact score offsetting improvement in the research environment, teaching environment, and industry income. With IISC’s slide, it is for the first time India has failed to make the top 300 in the last seven years. However, the Bangalore based institute still ranks highest among all others in India and shares its position with IIT- Roper in the (THE) list.
The ranking editor Ellie Bothwell said “India has a huge potential in global higher education, given its rapid youth population and economy and use of English-language instruction. However, it is disappointing to see the country fall out of the top 300 of the rankings these years, with only a small number of institutions registering progress. The Indian government has strong ambitions to boost the global standing of its top universities and attract foreign students, academics and research collaboration. It now needs to back up this aspiration with high levels of investment or risk declining further amid increasing global competition, especially from other parts of Asia”.
According to THE, the best Indian institutions are generally characterized by relatively strong scores for teaching environment and industry income, but perform poorly when it comes to international outlook in comparison to both regional and international counterparts.
Globally, the US once again has 60 universities in the top 200, 10 of which comes from the state of California alone. US institutions saw a slight drop in their average ranking overall. Besides Oxford which topped for the fourth year running, the California Institute of Technology rose three places to second, Cambridge dropped one place to third and Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) joined them at the top of the list.
In the future world, university ranking will most likely reveal intense competition. While European and American face hurdles, Chinese and other Asian universities have challenges of their own they must meet.
These include the excellent academics they produce do not move abroad to more established institute in Europe and North America promoting a culture of scholarly creativity and freedom and boosting ties with nations across the globe.
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