Page 40 - EW April 2025

Cover Story

India’s 1.4 million schools, 45,000 col- “The distinguishing feature of
leges and 1,168 universities. EWIHER 2025-26 is that the sam-
A substantial number of private ple respondents for the survey have
universities equipped with globally been carefully selected and it reflects
benchmarked infrastructure — librar- the opinions of people who are well-
ies, laboratories and highly-qualified informed and knowledgeable about
domestic and expat faculty — have Indian higher education. The second
mushroomed countrywide. Moreover, feature is that our research personnel
a new spirit of competitive dynamism have interviewed individual respon-
has been infused in primary-second- dents, avoiding the common practice
ary education by the annual Educa- of cluster interviews which tend to be
tionWorld India School Rankings dominated by influencers. Therefore,
introduced in 2007, which has since the quality and authenticity of the re-
evolved into the largest schools rank- sponses of our sample respondents
ing survey worldwide. And critically, are likely to be superior,” says Shu-
following your editors convening In- bra Misra, promoter-director of AZ
dia’s first international early childhood Research. An alumna of IIM-Lucknow,
care and education (ECCE) conference Misra: knowledgeable sample respondents Misra is a highly experienced market
in 2010 and introducing the annual research and industry professional
EW India Preschool Rankings that rank colleges and universities in sepa- having served with the pioneer ORG-
very year, ECCE has been formalised rate categories. Moreover, the Union MARG (now A.C. Nielsen), Blackstone
and accorded pride of place in the Na- education ministry’s NIRF (National MR (now Synovate) and Tata Global
tional Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Institutional Ranking Framework) Beverages for an aggregate 25 years
Y ET IT IS incontrovert- 100 colleges and universities. How- decades ago.
before co-promoting AZ Partners two
introduced in 2015, ranks India’s Top
ever, we believe that the annual EWI-
Misra is unfazed by “uninformed
ible that the wealth
criticism” that the size of the sample
and advancement of
HER surveys are qualitatively superior
nations is most depen-
dent upon teaching- because of our education focus and respondents database in EWIHER
better domain knowledge. The NIRF
2025-26 is too small for a population
learning, research and rankings based on self-assessment of of 1.4 billion. She believes that in EW-
knowledge creation in its institutions participating institutions, lack cred- AZR institutional surveys, which be-
of higher learning, and universities ibility. gan after EducationWorld parted ways
in particular. But for historic reasons Against this backdrop, for this with the Delhi-based Centre for Fore-
alluded to above, India’s universities year’s EWIHER survey, we commis- casting & Research (C fore) last year,
have been insufficiently encouraged, sioned the Bangalore-based AZ Re- “heterogeneity ensures that response
empowered or enabled to generate search Partners Pvt. Ltd (AZR) to variance is negligible”. “Although a
path-breaking new knowledge. There- conduct a survey based upon percep- larger sample size may provide more
fore, they have failed to discharge the tions of knowledgeable individuals accurate results when forecasting the
implicit social contract between the countrywide to rate and rank India’s outcome of general elections, in other
minority privileged to access higher most respected higher education in- market surveys, larger sample sizes
education and the general population. stitutions including universities; un- have a declining rate of return and
That’s why in 2013, your editors in- dergrad Arts, Science and Commerce often result in considerable loss for
troduced the annual EducationWorld Colleges; Engineering Colleges, and clients,” says Misra.
India Higher Education Rankings. The Business Schools. For conducting the EWIHER
purpose of this initiative is to not only For this project, AZR compiled a 2025-26 survey, 100 AZR personnel
enable school and undergrad college- database of 2,100 sample respondents interviewed 2,100 selected sample
leavers to choose the most aptitudi- comprising 1,200 students and 800 respondents as detailed above over a
nally suitable universities for higher faculty currently studying and teach- three-months period and persuaded
education, but to also introduce the ing in higher education institutions them to rate HEIs they were aware of
spirit of healthy competition inter se. plus 100 leaders/senior managers of on eight-12 parameters of HEI excel-
In India, numerous media publica- Indian industry in 22 states (Assam, lence. These parameters include com-
tions notably India Today, have been Andhra, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Ra- petence of faculty, faculty welfare and
rating higher education institutions jasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh development, research & innovation,
under several parameters of academic and West Bengal, among others) coun- industry interface, graduate place-
excellence and totaling rating scores to trywide. ments, leadership/governance quality,

40 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2025