Page 38 - EW may 2026

Cover Story

EW INDIA HIGHER EDUCATION RANKINGS 2026-27

TOP 500

ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE

COLLEGES

Although several media publications publish annual college and
university rankings, these are mostly politics-focused publications
for whom education reporting and coverage is peripheral.
Therefore it’s generally accepted that the annual EWIHER with its
careful categorisation of HEIs — to eliminate apples with oranges
comparisons — is the most reliable guide for school-leavers seeking
admission into India’s Top 500 ASC colleges

Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen

T HE MOST UNKINDEST CUT THAT chaired by D.S. Kothari, Chairman of the University Grants

post-independence India’s confused
Commission, recommended a minimum 6 percent of GDP
socialist neta-babu brotherhood in-
should be allocated for public education, that recommenda-
tion has never been honoured. The national allocation for
flicted upon the hapless public, which
public education (Centre plus states) has averaged 3.5-3.8
suffered almost two centuries of con-
tinuous loot and exploitation under
the British Raj, was neglect of public
As a result, the country’s 1 million government schools
education. As a result, to this day — 79 percent of GDP for almost eight decades.
are in a shambles, the overwhelming majority bereft of labs,
long years after the Indian tricolour was unfurled on the libraries and lavatories and plagued by chronic teacher ab-
ramparts of the Red Fort, Delhi with high hopes and ringing senteeism, routine corporal punishment and dismal learn-
rhetoric (“tryst with destiny”) — 23 percent of free India’s ing outcomes. Most children routinely promoted to class
citizens (322 million) are unable to read and write a para- VIII are unable to read class V texts or manage simple sums.
graph in any language, the official test of literacy. In addi- Learning outcomes in the country’s estimated 400,000 BPS
tion, another estimated 30 percent (420 million) are quasi- (budget private schools) where children of the upwardly
literate, unable to fill up the hundreds of official forms and mobile poor are fleeing in droves, are only marginally bet-
documents required by the socialist dispensation. ter. According to your editors, only 4,000 primary-second-
Although back in 1967, a high-powered committee ary schools rated and ranked in the comprehensive annual

38 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2025