UPSC FACT

World Best Universities Ranking

Context: The 15th edition of the QS World University Rankings has been released by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS ranks the world’s top 1,000 universities, across 85 countries.

Being the only international ranking to have received International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) approval, the QS ranking is viewed as one of the three most-widely read university rankings in the world, along with Academic Ranking of World Universities and Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

 

Global performers:

Globally, Massachusetts Institute of Technology remains the top university for the seventh consecutive year.
Stanford University, Harvard University and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) all retain their positions at second, third and fourth in the world respectively.
From Asia, National University of Singapore (11) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (12) and Tsinghua University, China (17) have been ranked the best.
 

Performance of Indian institutions:

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IIT-D) are in the top 200.
The number of Indian universities in the top 1,000 increased from 20 to 24. 9 Indian institutions have been individually ranked in the top-500 as against 6 last year.
IIT-Bombay is now the top institute in the country rising 17 positions from 2018 to 162. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, rises 20 places to 170th.
17 of India’s 24 ranked universities improved their rank for Academic Reputation, while 13 improved their rank for Employer Reputation.
 

Way ahead for India:

The rankings are an affirmation of faith in the premier Indian higher educational institutions. The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has been taking several steps to improve the global rankings, especially the world-renowned IITs by providing more funds and launching the Institutes of Eminence scheme under which institutes would be freed from regulatory framework. However, there’s still work to be done beyond the top universities.

 

Facts for Prelims:

International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) emerged as a joint initiative of the UNESCO European Centre for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) and a group of international ranking experts concerned with the quality of academic ranking.