Indian institutes performed poorly for yet another year in the World University Rankings 2018 released on Tuesday. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was the highest ranked institute from the country, but it slipped from the 201-250 band to the 251-300 one. The fall was attributed to a drop in its research influence score and research income.
Similarly, IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur, which were among the best Indian institutions, were knocked down from the previous year’s position of the 401- 500 club to 501-600 band. IIT Bombay, however, did not budge from its 2017 ranking and was placed in the 351-400 club. IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee also retained their positions in the 501-600 bracket.
“It is disappointing that India has declined in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings amid increasing global competition,” said Editorial Director of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Rankings Phil Baty. “As leading universities in other Asian territories such as China, Hong Kong and Singapore are consistently rising up the rankings, in part thanks to high and sustained levels of funding, India’s flagship Indian Institute of Science moves further away from the elite top 200.” Read | India’s top 10 universities, click here
He also pointed out that Indian institutes were lagging behind on the internationalisation front. “Government policy strictly limits the number of students from abroad who can study in India and prevents international scholars from being hired into long-term faculty positions,” THE said in an email sent on Tuesday. Overall, the University of Oxford was ranked first in the world followed by Cambridge University. California Institute of Technology and Stanford University stood third.
[“Source-timesofindia”]