Page 41 - EW may 2026

parisons — is the most reliable guide clientele includes blue-chip companies
for school-leavers seeking admission such as Mars (USA), Tata ClassEdge,
into India’s Top 500 ASC colleges. NIIS Fund among others to undertake
Against this backdrop, after pre- this arduous exercise.
senting detailed league tables rating “For this year’s survey, we consti-
India’s 400 most respected govern- tuted a sample base of 2,175, compris-
ment and private universities last ing 1,245 students and 830 faculty in
month (April), in this issue, we pres- higher education institutions and 100
ent the Part-II edition of EWIHER industry leaders in 22 states coun-
2026-27 rating India’s 500 most re- trywide. In face-to-face, telephonic
spected Arts, Science and Commerce and online interviews — as against
(ASC) colleges under six parameters cluster interviews favoured by some
of undergrad education excellence market research companies — sample
and ranking them inter se nationally, respondents were requested to rate
in the states and 230 cities. Also pre- ASC colleges they were familiar with
sented in this issue are league tables on six parameters of higher education
ranking 250 Private Engineering in- Mishra: one-on-one interviews excellence viz, competence of faculty,
stitutions and 200 Private B-schools. faculty welfare and development, cur-
For reasons of accuracy, we have cat- NOTHER distinguishing riculum & pedagogy (digital readi-
egorised ASC colleges into Govern- A feature of the annual ness), placements, infrastructure and
ment and Private autonomous and EWIHER is that for en- facilities and leadership/governance.
non-autonomous institutions. gineering colleges, we “Engineering colleges were as-
This segregation is important be- restrict our league table to the Top sessed on nine parameters including
cause in general, parents/students 250 private institutions. The ratio- research and innovation capability
prefer ASC colleges with academic nale for excluding government en- and value for money. And private B-
and administrative autonomy, unte- gineering colleges is that all league schools were evaluated on 12 param-
thered to the apron strings of large tables are dominated by the country’s eters of business management ex-
parent universities which often af- 23 IITs (Indian Institutes of Technol- cellence. The interviews with target
filiate 500-700 colleges. Autonomous ogy) and 31 NITs (National Institutes respondents were conducted over a
colleges empowered to design their of Technology). Undoubtedly these period of three months by our mar-
own syllabuses and curriculums, tend pampered, heavily subsidised Central ket research personnel. Thanks to
to offer higher quality education than government HEIs provide good qual- EducationWorld’s excellent reputa-
non-autonomous ASC colleges that of- ity engineering and technology educa- tion built over the past 26 years, we
fer standardised syllabuses designed tion. But because they are highly sub- didn’t experience any problems of
by affiliating universities. It’s also sidised, they are the first preference of access and response,” says Shubra
noteworthy that autonomous colleges school-leavers and tediously dominate Misra, promoter-director of AZ Re-
are conferred this status after careful all league tables. Moreover of the re- search. An alumna of IIM-Lucknow,
evaluation by the apex-level UGC. As cord 1.4 million school-leavers who Misra is a highly experienced market
such, they are generally regarded a write the IIT-JEE (joint entrance ex- research and industry professional
cut above non-autonomous colleges, amination), the annual intake of these having served with the pioneer ORG-
although there are exceptions to this 23 institutes is a mere 18,000. And MARG (now A.C. Nielsen), Blackstone
general rule. NITs 24,000. MR (now Synovate) and Tata Global
For instance St. Stephen’s College, In the circumstances with a mi- Beverages for an aggregate 25 years
Delhi, routinely ranked the country’s nuscule number of the 1.4 million before co-promoting AZ Partners two
#1 non-autonomous ASC college into school-leavers who write the gruelling decades ago.
which admission (for merit category, annual IIT-JEE admitted into these In the pages following, we pres-
i.e, non-Christian students) is as dif- high-quality engineering institutes, ent league tables rating the country’s
ficult as it is for IITs. Despite repeated your editors resolved to exclude them Top 500 Arts, Science and Commerce
pleas for autonomous status stretch- — and all government engineering private and government (which tend
ing over several years, it hasn’t been colleges — to highlight the next best to be omitted from the league tables
awarded independent status. There- option: the country’s Top 250 private of other publications) colleges under
fore, school-leavers seeking admis- engineering institutions. six parameters of higher education
sion into best undergrad ASC colleges To compile EWIHER 2026-27, we excellence, Top 250 private engineer-
should also check out the non-auton- again persuaded the Bangalore-based ing institutions, and Top 200 private
omous colleges league tables carefully. AZ Research Partners Pvt. Ltd, whose B-schools.

MAY 2026 EDUCATIONWORLD 41