Page 56 - EW May 2020 for Flipbuilder

Cover Story

INDIA’S TOP-RANKED

GOVERNMENT UNIVERSITIES

With an estimated 32 percent of the country’s students in government universities, this year the
higher education enrolled in government universities, the annual EducationWorld India Higher
annual EW India Higher Education Rankings 2020-21 has Education Rankings 2020-21, which
hitherto ranked private universities,
introduced separate league tables rating the country’s 150 has introduced separate league tables
most reputed government universities rating the country’s 150 most reputed
government varsities under ten pa-
SUMMIYA YASMEEN
rameters of higher education excel-
lence and ranks them inter se.
To conduct the EW India Govern-
ment University Rankings 2020-21,
over 150 field personnel of the highly-
reputed Delhi-based market research
and opinion polls company, Centre
for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd
(C fore), interviewed 4,168 sample
respondents comprising 2,214 faculty
and 1,126 final year students of 162
universities, and 828 industry rep-
resentatives in 25 cities countrywide.
They were persuaded to award public
universities they are familiar with,
scores of 1-300 on ten parameters of
higher education excellence, viz , fac-
ulty competence, faculty welfare & de-
velopment, research and innovation,
curriculum and pedagogy, industry
interface, placements, infrastructure,
IISc, Bangalore: officialdom apprehension. Inset: Dr. Anurag Kumar internationalism, leadership/gover-
nance and range and diversity of study
lthough since the dawn of Within the public higher education programmes offered. Higher weight-
the new millennium when system, the 50 Central universities age is given to the critical parameters
several state governments (budget: Rs.7,463.26 crore in 2020- of faculty competence (150), research
Abegan liberally legislating 21) and deemed universities are top of and innovation (300) and infrastruc-
promotion of private universities, the the tree followed by 409 state govern- ture (150).
country’s 513 publicly-funded gov- ment varsities. Once reputed for their “This year’s rankings league table
ernment universities have lost their high academic quality and excellent is based on a mix of factual objective
sheen, they still dominate India’s faculty, the majority of India’s 409 criteria and perceptions of knowledge-
higher education system. According state universities are in a shambles able sample respondents. Objective
to the Delhi-based University Grants ruined by meddling rustic politicians, data has been culled from papers pub-
Commission (UGC) data (2020), cur- over-the-top caste-based selection of lished by faculty in refereed journals
rently 409 state and 50 Central gov- faculty and students, and over-subsi- and number of citations was obtained
ernment, 127 deemed (government disation of tuition fees. from secondary sources including the
and private) and 349 private varsities Yet, since an estimated 32 percent Scopus index. Twenty percent weight-
are providing higher education coun- of the country’s 37.4 million students age is given to publications and cita-
trywide. in higher education are enrolled in tions in refereed journals worldwide,”

56 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2020