Page 36 - EW May 2025

Cover Story

of EducationWorld. Therefore, it is IndusInd Bank, Mars Chocolates,
submitted that the annual EWIHER WPP Group, Pearson Group and
with its careful categorisation of HEIs significantly, Ashoka, Mahindra and
— to eliminate apples with oranges BML Munjal universities.
type comparisons — is the most reli- “For this survey, we constituted
able guide for school-leavers seeking a sample base of 2,100, comprising
admission into India’s Top 500 ASC 1,200 students and 800 faculty in
colleges. higher education institutions and 100
Against this backdrop, we present industry leaders in 22 states country-
the Part-II edition of EWIHER 2025- wide. In face-to-face, telephonic and
26 in which we rate and rank India’s online interviews — as against cluster
most respected 500 Arts, Science, interviews favoured by some market
Commerce (ASC), 200 Private Engi- research companies — sample re-
neering institutions and 100 Private spondents were requested to rate
B-schools. For reasons of accuracy, ASC colleges they were familiar with
we have carefully categorised ASC on six parameters of higher education
colleges into Private and Government excellence viz, competence of faculty,
autonomous and non-autonomous Mishra: easy access & response faculty welfare and development, cur-
institutions. riculum & pedagogy (digital readi-
This categorization is important gineering colleges, we restrict our ness), placements, infrastructure and
because in general, parents/students league table to the Top 200 private facilities and leadership/governance.
prefer ASC colleges with academic institutions. The rationale for exclud- Engineering colleges were as-
and administrative autonomy, less ing government engineering colleges sessed on nine parameters including
tethered to the apron strings of large is that all league tables are dominated research and innovation capability
parent universities which often af- by the country’s 23 IITs (Indian In- and value for money And private B-
filiate 500-700 colleges. Autonomous stitutes of Technology) and 31 NITs schools were evaluated on 12 param-
colleges empowered to design their (National Institutes of Technology). eters of business management ex-
own syllabuses and curriculums tend Admittedly, these pampered, heavily cellence. The interviews with target
to offer higher quality education than subsidised Central government engi- respondents were conducted over a
non-autonomous ASC colleges that of- neering colleges provide good quality period of three months by our market
fer standardised affiliating university engineering and technology educa- research personnel. Thanks to Edu-
designed syllabuses. It’s noteworthy tion. But because they are heavily sub- cationWorld’s excellent reputation
that autonomous colleges are con- sidised, they are the first preference of built over the past 25 years, we didn’t
ferred this status after careful evalu- school-leavers and tediously dominate experience any problems of access
ation by the apex-level University all league tables. This consideration and response,” says Shubra Misra,
Grants Commission. As such, they are apart, although a record 1.2 million promoter-director of AZ Research. An
generally regarded a cut above non- school-leavers write the IIT-JEE (joint alumna of IIM-Lucknow, Misra is a
autonomous colleges. entrance examination), the annual in- highly experienced market research
H OWEVER WITHIN India’s 10,000. And NITs 7,750. served with the pioneer ORG-MARG
take of these 23 institutes is a mere
and industry professional having
(now A.C. Nielsen), Blackstone MR
In the circumstances with a minus-
needlessly complex edu-
cation system, the best
erages for an aggregate 25 years be-
leavers who write the gruelling annual
colleges are not neces- cule number of the 1.2 million school- (now Synovate) and Tata Global Bev-
sarily autonomous. For instance St. IIT-JEE admitted into these excellent fore co-promoting AZ Partners two
Stephen’s College, Delhi, routinely engineering institutes, your editors decades ago.
ranked the country’s #1 non-auton- resolved to exclude them — and all In the pages following, we pres-
omous ASC college — for mysteri- government engineering colleges — ent league tables rating the country’s
ous reasons and despite pleading for to highlight the next best option: the Top 500 Arts, Science and Commerce
autonomous status for several years country’s Top 200 private engineering private and government (which tend
— has not been awarded autonomy. institutions. to be omitted from the league tables
Therefore, school-leavers seeking ad- To compile EWIHER 2025-26, we of other publications) colleges under
mission into best undergrad colleges again commissioned the Bangalore- six parameters of higher education
should tread carefully. based AZ Research Partners Pvt. excellence, Top 200 private engineer-
Another distinguishing feature of Ltd, whose clientele includes blue- ing institutions, and Top 100 private
the annual EWIHER is that for en- chip companies such as Tata Hitachi, B-schools.

36 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2025