Page 42 - EW April 2024_Neat

Cover Story

categorised ASC colleges into Private ties, among others.
and Government autonomous and “For this survey, we constituted
Top 100 non-autonomous institu- a sample base of 2,100, comprising
tions, and have also rated and ranked 1,100 students and 800 faculty in
the Top 100 private engineering col- higher education institutions and 100
leges countrywide. industry leaders in 22 states country-
These distinctions are important wide. In face-to-face, telephonic and
because in general parents/students online interviews they were requested
prefer ASC colleges with academic and to rate ASC colleges they were famil-
administrative autonomy, and less iar with on six parameters of higher
tethered to the apron strings of large education excellence devised by Edu-
parent universities which often af- cationWorld viz, competence of fac-
filiate 500-700 colleges. Autonomous ulty, faculty welfare and development,
colleges empowered to design their curriculum & pedagogy (digital readi-
own comprehensive syllabuses and ness), placements, infrastructure and
curriculums tend to offer higher qual- facilities and leadership/governance.
ity education than non-autonomous Engineering colleges were assessed
ASC colleges which offer standardised Misra: easy access and response on nine parameters including re-
affiliating university prescribed sylla- search and innovation capability and
buses. It’s noteworthy that autono- school-leavers and tediously dominate value for money. The interviews with
mous colleges are conferred this all engineering college rankings. This target respondents were conducted
status after careful evaluation by the consideration apart, although a record over a period of three months by our
apex-level University Grants Com- 1.2 million school-leavers write the market research personnel. Thanks
mission. As such they are generally IIT-JEE (joint entrance examination) to EducationWorld’s excellent repu-
regarded as being a cut above non- the annual intake of these 23 institutes tation built over the past almost 25
autonomous colleges. is a mere 10,000. And of NITs 7,750. years, we didn’t experience any prob-
However within India’s complex In the circumstances with a mere lems of access and response,” says
education system, the best colleges 2 percent of the 1.2 million school- Shubra Misra, promoter-director of
are not necessarily autonomous. For leavers who write the annual IIT-JEE AZ Research. An alumna of IIM-Luc-
instance St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, admitted into these admittedly excel- know, Misra is a highly experienced
routinely ranked the country’s #1 non- lent engineering institutes, your edi- market research and industry profes-
autonomous ASC college — for myste- tors resolved to exclude them — and sional having served with the pioneer
rious reasons and despite pleading for all government engineering colleges ORG-MARG (now A.C. Nielsen),
autonomous status for several years — to provide the next best option: the Blackstone MR (now Synovate) and
— has not been awarded autonomy. country’s Top 100 private engineering Tata Global Beverages for an aggre-
Therefore, school-leavers seeking the colleges. gate 25 years before co-promoting AZ
most suitable undergrad colleges need Therefore, this year after our field Partners two decades ago.
In the pages following we pres-
to tread carefully. survey agency, the Gurgaon-based ent league tables rating the country’s
M OREOVER, ANOTHER Pvt. Ltd (C fore) in early January an- Top 500 Arts, Science and Commerce
Centre for Forecasting & Research
private and government (which tend
nounced its intent to conduct its own
distinguishing feature
of the annual EWIHER
of other publications) colleges under
is that for engineering school, and presumably HEI rankings, to be omitted from the league tables
we commissioned the Bangalore-
colleges we restrict our league table to based AZ Research Partners Pvt. six parameters of higher education
the Top 100 private institutions. The Ltd to compile the much anticipated excellence, and also Top 100 private
rationale for excluding government EWIHER 2024-25. engineering colleges.
engineering colleges is that the league In our opinion, AZ Research Part- League tables rating and ranking
table is certain to be dominated by the ners Pvt. Ltd (estb.2002) has a supe- India’s pre-eminent private and pub-
country’s 23 IITs (Indian Institutes of rior track record in quantitative and lic universities and private B-schools
Technology) and 31 NITs (National qualitative market research. Its cli- will be featured in our May issue. Sub-
Institutes of Technology). Because entele includes blue-chip companies sequently, the country’s top ranked
these Central government engineering such as Tata Hitachi, IndusInd Bank, Higher Education Institutions will
colleges provide best quality technol- Mars Chocolates, WPP Group, Pear- be awarded and felicitated in a gala
ogy education at heavily subsidised son Group and significantly, Ashoka, event scheduled to be staged in Delhi
prices, they are the first preference of Mahindra and BML Munjal universi- in May/June.

42 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2024