Page 89 - EW May 2025

dustry interface, value for money, infrastructure,
faculty welfare, leadership and governance, and
curriculum and pedagogy. The scores awarded by
respondents under each parameter were totaled
to rank the country’s Top 200 private engineering
colleges/institutes inter se.
Except at the very top, this year’s league table
of India’s best private engineering institutes has
undergone a makeover. While the Birla In-
stitute of Technology & Science (BITS),
Pilani, the country’s pioneer private engineer-
ing institution established way back in 1946, is
ranked India #1 for the third consecutive year,
this year’s sample respondents have promoted
the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT),
Tamil Nadu, to #2 (#3 in 2024-25) jointly with
the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Infor-
mation & Communication Technology,
BITS-Pilani’s Prof. Ramgopal Rao. EW #1. NIRF #20: no comment Gandhinagar (#4). The elevation of these two
institutions has pushed the low-profile but highly
only 45 percent “meet industry standards” and a mere 10 respected previously second-ranked International Insti-
percent are employed. “There is a massive disconnect be- tute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad
tween academic training and industry demands, leaving to #3.
millions of graduates unprepared and unemployed,” says Since it was established in 1946 by the legendary busi-
the ToI report (28/10). nessman-philanthropist G.D. Birla, the founder of the
Against this backdrop, the annual EducationWorld pan- Birla business empire (market capitalisation: Rs.8.5 lakh
India engineering institutions rankings league tables intro- crore), and conferred deemed university status in 1964,
duced in 2013, has had to tread warily to differentiate our BITS-Pilani has established five campuses equipped with
league tables from other magazines and dailies. Initially, state-of-the-art infrastructure in Mohali, Goa, Hyderabad,
the EW league tables included and ranked the Central-gov- Mumbai and Dubai with an aggregate enrollment of 18,000
ernment promoted Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) students mentored by 470 faculty. In Indian industry and
and National Institutes of Technology (NITs). commerce, it’s commonly accepted that BITS-Pilani is on a
But in 2016, your editors resolved to exclude IITs and par with the best IITs. But curiously in the Union education
NITs because these highly-subsidised institutions not only ministry’s NIRF Rankings 2024, BITS-Pilani is ranked #20
monotonously top all media league tables, but also because among engineering colleges and #19 among universities.
they admit a mere 2 percent of the 1.4 million class XII Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, an alum of IIT-Bombay and
graduates who write the annual IIT Joint Entrance Exam. Universitat der Bundeswehr, Munich (Germany) and for-
Instead, in our EW survey of India’s best engineering col- mer director of IIT-Delhi, who took charge as Vice Chan-
leges (and universities) we focus upon evaluating the best cellor of BITS-Pilani in 2002, prefers not to comment
among India’s 3,918 private engineering and technology on this premier engineering university’s NIRF ranking.
education institutes to enable 98 percent of students who However, he is not surprised that varying EW sample re-
don’t make the cut into IITs/NITs to choose the most loca- spondents have ranked BITS-Pilani India’s #1 private engi-
tionally and aptitudinally suitable non-government engi- neering institution for the past three years, and this year as
neering colleges, some of whom are closing the IITs/NITs well with top scores under eight of the nine EW parameters
versus rest gap. of engineering education excellence.
To compile new-age AI-driven EW India Higher Edu- “Among knowledgeable academics and within the stu-
cation Rankings (EWIHER) we commissioned the highly dents community — every year 215,000 higher secondary
qualified AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd, Bengaluru. school-leavers and college graduates write the BITS-Pilani
Accordingly, over 100 market research personnel of AZR entrance exam of whom 3,500 are admitted — and in In-
interviewed 2,100 sample respondents including higher dia’s top-ranked companies, it’s common knowledge that
ed faculty, college students and industry representatives BITS-Pilani introduced its integrated workplace experience
countrywide. The sample respondents were persuaded to under its practice schools programmes several decades ago
rate engineering institutes/colleges (of whom they had suf- with final year students acquiring hands-on industry ex-
ficient knowledge) on nine parameters of excellence — fac- perience for up to six months in 600 companies in India
ulty competence, placement, research and innovation, in- and abroad. This ensures our graduates are fully prepared

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