What the university rankings tell us

What the university rankings tell us

The 2017 rankings of universities and colleges, the second edition of this exercise, shows the top 100 colleges are clustered in Delhi (20), Tamil Nadu (37), Kerala (14) and Andhra Pradesh (11). The rest of the country gets the remaining 18. This is disquieting.
The trend is likely to be reinforced by the observation of the human resource development minister that colleges that rank high would get even more resources. Since the budget outlay on higher education per se will remain constrained, allocating more funds to institutions that already do well will deprive less-fortunate institutions of funds and depress the chance of excellence spreading. This is not what India’s dream of reaping a huge demographic dividend and being a knowledge economy calls for.
The institutions have been ranked on the basis of five composite parameters — teaching, learning & resources; research & professional practice; graduation outcome, outreach & inclusivity, perception.
Rankings are not an end in themselves. It is an analysis that should help individual institutions and collectively the higher education sector identify strengths, weaknesses, and help chart a path for improvement.
The rankings of 100 universities find that India’s top ranking university, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, is head and shoulders above its peers, scoring 20 points more than the next. Most universities have average scores in terms of research, with those with a science focus scoring relatively better. Multi-disciplinary or social science/humanities-oriented ones fare better on placement/higher studies/entrepreneurship, salaries.
Two takeaways: universities do not focus on research and knowledge creation, and pure sciences are not a draw on account of poor earning prospects. Both need to be remedied.