Page 62 - EW June 2021 Low Res

Cover Story

INDIA’S BEST GOVERNMENT UNIVERSITIES

Since government
universities offer highly
subsidised higher education
they are more affordable
for the great majority of
the country’s 260 million
households. Hence they are
preferred by the majority of
school and college leavers

Summiya Yasmeen

hough with their expansive
state-of-the-art campuses,
high-quality faculty and
Tnew-age study programmes,
India’s new-genre globally bench- IISc campus, Bengaluru: accountability deficit. Inset: Dr. Govindan Rangarajan
marked private universities are
emerging as the preferred option of ernment varsities. With government fare & development, research and in-
the best and brightest school-leavers institutions offering highly subsidised novation, curriculum and pedagogy
entering India’s higher education sys- higher education, they are more af- (digital readiness), industry interface,
tem, the country’s Central and state fordable for the great majority of the placements, infrastructure, interna-
government universities can’t be writ- country’s 260 million households. tionalism, leadership/governance
ten off. Although attractive, private universi- and range and diversity of study pro-
According to latest data (2021) ties levy tuition and other fees that are grammes. Higher weightage is given
of the University Grants Commis- astronomical relative to government to the critical parameters of faculty
sion (UGC), currently 425 state and universities. Hence the latter are competence (150), research and inno-
54 Central government, 125 deemed preferred by the majority of school- vation (300) and infrastructure (150).
(government and private) and 375 leavers and deserve to be ranked “The EW Government University
private varsities are providing higher separately inter se. Rankings 2021-22 are based on a mix
education to 37.4 million students in To conduct the EW India Gov- of objective criteria and perceptions
higher education. Of them, 32 percent ernment University Rankings 2021- of sample respondents. Objective
are enrolled in government universi- 22, the highly-reputed Delhi-based research data published in refereed
ties. More important, the country’s market research and opinion polls journals and number of citations
425 state government universities company Centre for Forecasting & was obtained from secondary sourc-
affiliate over 38,000 junior and un- Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb.2000) es such as Scopus. Simultaneously,
dergraduate colleges within their ju- interviewed 4,141 sample respon- a perceptual survey was conducted
risdictions, prescribe their syllabuses, dents comprising 2,122 faculty, 1,136 among knowledgeable stakehold-
sanction new study programmes and final year students of 154 universities, ers including faculty, students and
conduct examinations. and 883 industry representatives in industry representatives to rate the
Therefore last year, the annual 25 cities countrywide. most well-reputed government uni-
EducationWorld India Higher Edu- These respondents were per- versities on the selected parameters
cation Rankings, which were initially suaded to award public universities of higher education excellence. The
restricted to ranking private universi- of whom they have sufficient knowl- scores awarded by sample respon-
ties, introduced separate league tables edge scores of 1-300 on ten param- dents under each parameter were to-
rating and ranking the country’s 150 eters of higher education excellence, talled to rank government universities
best reputed Central and state gov- viz, faculty competence, faculty wel- inter se,” says Premchand Palety,

62 EDUCATIONWORLD JUNE 2021