RisingShiningSuperpower
BANNED
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2014
- Messages
- 1,446
- Reaction score
- -6
- Country
- Location
How Could India’s IITs Do so Badly in a Global Ranking of Engineering Schools? - India Real Time - WSJ
How Could India’s IITs Do so Badly in a Global Ranking of Engineering Schools?
12:23 pm IST
Oct 13, 2015
Education
Indian engineering students during a competition organized by the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Apr. 2015.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
They have nurtured some of Silicon Valley’s leading lights but Indian institutions feature just eight times among a recently-compiled list of the world’s top 250 engineering schools.
The highest ranked, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, came in at 103rd place on the U.S. News and World Report ranking published last week.
The league table put China’s Tsinghua University top, ahead of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.
The others from India — all IITs apart from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Jadvapur University in Kolkata – placed between 169th and 229th.
Universities were graded on 12 indicators, including the number of academic research papers produced, citations given and Ph.D.s awarded. This is the first year Indian schools have been included in the engineering-specific rankings.
The Indian engineering schools have produced some stellar engineering graduates. For instance, IIT Kharagpur, ranked 171, counts Google CEO Sundar Pichai among its metallurgical engineering graduates.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, earned his electrical engineering degree from Manipal Institute of Technology, which didn’t make it into the rankings.
So why don’t these schools do better internationally?
Experts attribute the low rankings to a lack of focus on research and the high student-to-faculty ratio among other things.
In the Quacquarelli Symonds’ global university rankings, published in September, Indian schools gained ground this year — IIT Delhi climbed 56 spots to the 179th rank and the Indian Institute of Science ranked 147th—but they were the only ones to make it into the top 200.
Made with Datawrapper for The Wall Street Journal
Indian institutes also lose ground in rankings because they enroll only a small cohort of foreign students, mostly in post graduate and research programs, and also have very small international faculties.
In IIT Delhi, for instance, the size of international faculty was only about 1% of its total teaching staff of more than 400. At MIT, which led the QS ranking, international staff members made up more than 55% of the total faculty. At the National University of Singapore, the top-ranking Asian university on the QS list, more than 60% of the staff were international.
IIT Chennai, in south India, enrolled its first international student in an undergraduate program last year.
Despite these advances, some, including Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys Ltd., one of India’s largest outsourcing firms, remain skeptical of the quality of education at domestic institutions. Mr. Murthy is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.
“Let us pause and ask what the contributions of Indian institutions of higher learning particularly IISc (Indian Institute of Science) and IITs, have been over the last 60-plus years to make our society and the world a better place,” Mr. Murthy was reported as saying during a speech in July at the Indian Institute of Science.
“Is there one invention from India that has become a household name in the globe? Is there one technology that has transformed the productivity of global corporations?” he said. “Folks, the reality is that there is no such contribution from India in the last 60 years.”
For breaking news, features and analysis from India, follow WSJ India on Facebook.
How Could India’s IITs Do so Badly in a Global Ranking of Engineering Schools?
12:23 pm IST
Oct 13, 2015
Education
Indian engineering students during a competition organized by the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Apr. 2015.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
They have nurtured some of Silicon Valley’s leading lights but Indian institutions feature just eight times among a recently-compiled list of the world’s top 250 engineering schools.
The highest ranked, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, came in at 103rd place on the U.S. News and World Report ranking published last week.
The league table put China’s Tsinghua University top, ahead of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.
The others from India — all IITs apart from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Jadvapur University in Kolkata – placed between 169th and 229th.
Universities were graded on 12 indicators, including the number of academic research papers produced, citations given and Ph.D.s awarded. This is the first year Indian schools have been included in the engineering-specific rankings.
The Indian engineering schools have produced some stellar engineering graduates. For instance, IIT Kharagpur, ranked 171, counts Google CEO Sundar Pichai among its metallurgical engineering graduates.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, earned his electrical engineering degree from Manipal Institute of Technology, which didn’t make it into the rankings.
So why don’t these schools do better internationally?
Experts attribute the low rankings to a lack of focus on research and the high student-to-faculty ratio among other things.
In the Quacquarelli Symonds’ global university rankings, published in September, Indian schools gained ground this year — IIT Delhi climbed 56 spots to the 179th rank and the Indian Institute of Science ranked 147th—but they were the only ones to make it into the top 200.
Made with Datawrapper for The Wall Street Journal
Indian institutes also lose ground in rankings because they enroll only a small cohort of foreign students, mostly in post graduate and research programs, and also have very small international faculties.
In IIT Delhi, for instance, the size of international faculty was only about 1% of its total teaching staff of more than 400. At MIT, which led the QS ranking, international staff members made up more than 55% of the total faculty. At the National University of Singapore, the top-ranking Asian university on the QS list, more than 60% of the staff were international.
IIT Chennai, in south India, enrolled its first international student in an undergraduate program last year.
Despite these advances, some, including Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys Ltd., one of India’s largest outsourcing firms, remain skeptical of the quality of education at domestic institutions. Mr. Murthy is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.
“Let us pause and ask what the contributions of Indian institutions of higher learning particularly IISc (Indian Institute of Science) and IITs, have been over the last 60-plus years to make our society and the world a better place,” Mr. Murthy was reported as saying during a speech in July at the Indian Institute of Science.
“Is there one invention from India that has become a household name in the globe? Is there one technology that has transformed the productivity of global corporations?” he said. “Folks, the reality is that there is no such contribution from India in the last 60 years.”
For breaking news, features and analysis from India, follow WSJ India on Facebook.
