IITs to pool resources to raise global rankings

New Delhi: Much like students who swot, plan and work for years towards gaining admission to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the 16 engineering schools themselves have pooled their resources to ensure a high ranking for brand IIT in global education rankings.

The plan was midwifed by the ministry of human resource development, presumably stung by the absence or poor position of the IITs, globally recognized as top engineering schools, in all international rankings. The ministry is convinced the plan will catapult the IITs, which will participate in the ranking exercise as one entity, into the Top 10.

“All IITs will go as a single entity, and we believe that it will bring them to top 10 ranks globally,” higher education secretary Ashok Thakur said after the meeting with the IITs. Thakur said that their poor ranking dents the image of India overseas.

According to the UK-based Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings of 2013, there is no Indian university in the top 200 institutions in the world. The US has 77 in the top 200 and the UK, 31. Five Indian institutions are in the top 400, including four IITs.

Currently, the IITs don’t participate in rankings and global agencies rank them based on the data available on their websites.

As part of the new proactive process of participation, the IITs will set up chairs (dedicated professors and officers) in charge of the work, Thakur explained. They will tabulate all types of data including that on research, placement, patents applied for and issued, consulting work, and other achievements, and submit these to global ranking agencies.

The government is also taking the help of two higher education ranking agencies, THE and QS (both from the UK), to train the chairs at the IITs on how to go about formally participating in the world ranking. “We will have a workshop of nodal professors with ranking agencies on how to present themselves. IIT Delhi has already set up a committee and all others will set up committees soon,” Thakur said.

Once successful, other central government-funded institutions will follow the IIT model, the secretary said.

“All central funded institutions such as the NITs (National Institutes of Technology) and central universities, will have nodal professors whose responsibility will be to provide up-to-date data about the institute. We will also tell others through the UGC (University Grant Commission) to do the same. Unless you give complete data, then the true picture will not come,” said another senior officer at the human resource development ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Thakur also said that his ministry is in touch with THE to bring out an India-specific ranking for top institutions.