Page 60 - EducationWorld May 2022

Cover Story EW India Private University Rankings 2022-23

INDIA’S TOP PRIVATE LIBERAL ARTS

& HUMANITIES UNIVERSITIES eral decades after independence, lib-

eral arts and social sciences education
was out of fashion with India’s middle
class and therefore attracted little, if
any, private investment. Liberal arts
education dispensed by government
HEIs was widely regarded as the fall
back option of school-leavers who
failed to qualify for admission into the
IITs, NITs and top-ranked private en-
gineering and much-too-few medical
colleges.
However, this middle class mind-
set changed after the historic but be-
lated liberalisation and deregulation
of the Indian economy in 1991. With
the economy which was stuck in the
3.5 percent per year GDP growth for
over 40 years, recording 7-8 percent
growth in the new millennium, the
country experienced a surge in de-
JGU's Dr. C. Raj Kumar (centre): faculty welfare priority mand for economists, well-educated
lawyers, social scientists and commu-
Privately promoted liberal arts universities are a relatively nication professionals. JGU, concep-
new phenomenon in Indian education. For several decades tualised by its founding vice chancel-
lor, the Oxford and Harvard educated
after independence, liberal arts and humanities education Dr. C. Raj Kumar who persuaded
was out of fashion with middle class India steel tycoon Naveen Jindal to endow
a corpus of Rs.500 crore upon JGU,
ationalisation and restruc- Institute of Technology & Science, was one of the first new genre private
turing of the Education- Pilani (estb.1964, an engineering and liberal arts, humanities and law uni-
World India Higher Educa- technology HEI) were ranked above versities off the blocks. Within the
Rtion Rankings which were JGU in that order. short span of 12 years under Dr. Raj
hitherto grouped under the heads of Self-evidently that’s not a level play- Kumar’s relentlessly go-getting lead-
private and government simpliciter ing field assessment given their vastly ership, the fully residential JGU has
has not only made it easier for school- different syllabuses and academic ob- established 12 schools including law,
leavers and scholars to choose colleges jectives. Restructuring and rationali- liberal arts and humanities, business,
and universities better suited to their sation of previous year’s league tables international affairs, government and
aptitudes and aspirations, but also has enabled these three institutions to public policy and communications and
provided higher education institutions top their discrete league tables. journalism on an 80-acre campus at
(HEIs) their proper place in the sun. Privately promoted liberal arts Sonipat (Haryana), an hour’s drive
For instance in 2021-22, O.P. universities are a relatively new phe- from New Delhi.
Jindal Global University (JGU, nomenon in Indian education. For While growing at breakneck speed,
estb.2009), which provides excellent, the past seven decades Arts, Science JGU has won numerous respected en-
globally benchmarked liberal arts, hu- and Commerce HEIs were mainly comiums. The London-based Quac-
manities and law undergrad and post- the province of the Central and state quarelli Symonds (QS) ranks JGU In-
grad education, was ranked #3 in the governments while private initiatives dia’s #1 private university in its latest
composite private un iversities league in higher education were focused on World Univerity Rankings and JGU’s
table. The Manipal Academy of Higher engineering and medical colleges, the law school #70 worldwide, while the
Education (MAHE, estb. 1953, a mul- most successful among them awarded Union government has designated
tidisciplinary university) and Birla university status. Moreover for sev- JGU an Institution of Eminence.

60 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2022