[Sachin Rana]
Recently, a set of data doing the rounds on social media attracted the attention of this writer. According to the data, globally, India has uniquely housed the highest number of universities in it – 5,288 to be precise – followed by the USA with 3,216, and our neighbour China stands at the fourth position with 2,565 universities.
However, as per the QS world university ranking system for 2023, USA holds the prestigious position of being the country to host maximum universities among the top 100 universities. China stands at sixth, but none of the Indian universities could find a place among the top 100 universities.
IISc Bengaluru, India’s first, finds place at the 155th spot, followed by IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi at 172nd and 174th positions. Then IIT Madras is at 250th position. In view of the above, the topic of the quality of education and research in Indian universities, which has been in vogue for a long time, needs to be mulled over once again.
For the benefit of the readers, QS ranking is respected widely due to its broad qualified sample size. In the 2023 ranking, it relied upon the following six parameters to judge the standards of the universities. First is the academic reputation from global survey (40 percent weightage); second is the employer reputation from global survey (10 percent); third is the faculty student ratio (20 percent); fourth is the proportion of international students (5 percent); fifth is the proportion of international faculty (5 percent); and last is the citation per faculty (20 percent).
In my opinion, these above six parameters seem acceptable to evaluate any of the university globally. Following the survey conducted with almost 1,30,000 qualified experts of higher education, the QS ranking gave more weightage to the reputation of both academic and employer, and then is the diversity in the students and faculty members; and lastly, the work quality of the faculty members.
Now, let’s examine the case for India for its low performance in the QS rankings. As per my understanding, one of the key reasons for the low quality of education and research in Indian universities is the lack of suitable and timely funding. Due to these large numbers of universities in our country – actually more than double of China – the amount of funding allocated to them is often inadequate, sparse and delayed. This has resulted in a shortage of infrastructure, equipment, and resources, which in turn affects the quality of education and research. This leads to affect the QS ranking parameters of reputation (both academic and employers) and also the citations of the faculty members in others’ research work.
Another important issue that plagues Indian universities is the outdated curriculum and teaching methods. Many universities in the country still follow traditional teaching methods and have not adapted to the changing needs of the modern world. This has resulted in a gap between the skills required by the industry and the skills that students possess when they graduate from Indian universities. The UNESCO Science report of 2021 commented boldly that one out of two Indian graduates is not employable. This kind of traditional atmosphere and orthodox attitude of the decision makers hampers the internationalisation of the students and faculty members, and thus a poor performance in the QS rankings.
It is also reported that the quality of faculty is also a matter of concern in Indian universities. While there are some highly qualified and experienced professors in Indian universities, a few are underqualified or lack the necessary expertise to teach modern and relevant courses. This has resulted in a lack of research output and a low citation rate for Indian universities in global rankings. We have hardly seen any foreign faculty member teaching in our local institutes and universities. IITs used to have a few other nationalities as faculty members, but the trend has vanished. This in turn affects the internationalisation of the students and the citation references in research works. But more importantly, the much desired global collaboration goes for a toss, which would have been more natural and aggressive if we had more skin tones in our faculty members.
Despite these challenges, there have been some recent developments that suggest that Indian universities are taking steps towards improving their quality. The government has launched several initiatives aimed at promoting research and innovation in higher education. For example, the government’s national institutional ranking framework ranks universities based on several parameters, such as teaching, research, and infrastructure, which has encouraged universities to improve their standards.
Moreover, some Indian universities have also started collaborating with international universities to improve their research output and international rankings. This has resulted in an increase in the number of joint research projects, exchange programmes, and conferences, which have helped Indian universities to gain exposure and recognition on the global stage. Schemes like direct admission to students abroad should be made more lucrative in the coming times, and, as more options have been given to the students in the new education policy, the same should attract a wider lot of global students to India. In the QS ranking-2023 also, India is the second most improved south Asian country by subject as compared to 2022.
In conclusion, while India has made significant progress in expanding its higher education system, there is still a long way to go to improve the quality of education and research in Indian universities. The government and universities need to work together to address the funding and infrastructure challenges, update the curriculum and teaching methods, and attract and retain highly qualified faculty from India and abroad alike. Only then can Indian universities hope to compete with their global counterparts and achieve recognition on the global stage. (Sachin Rana is an IAS officer posted in Arunachal Pradesh, and is a graduate from the prestigious IIT Delhi. The views expressed are personal.)
