QS World University Rankings 2022

In News

Recently, QS Quacquarelli Symonds has released the 18th edition of the world’s International University rankings.

About QS World University Rankings 2022

• The QS World University Rankings portfolio was inaugurated in 2004.
• The QS is a global higher education analysts.
• It has grown to become the world’s most popular source of comparative data about university performance.
• QS uses six indicators to compile the ranking:

Findings of Rankings

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology  (MIT) achieved a record-extending 10th consecutive year as world number-one. 
• The University of Oxford has risen to second for the first time since 2006.
• Stanford University and the University of Cambridge share third spot.
• This year, rankings listed the world’s top 1,300 universities – 145 more than in the last year’s edition, which can be found in 97 locations.

• India’s Position
  • Three Indian Universities have achieved top-200 positions in QS World University Rankings 2022. 
  • IIT-Bombay has fallen four places to 177 from its 2021 rank of 172.
  • IIT-Delhi, has become India’s second-best university, having risen from the 193rd rank to 185 since last year. 
  • The IISc has bagged the 186th rank, a notch below last year’s rank.
  • IIT-Madras, has risen 20 places and now ranks joint-255th, which is its highest position since 2017. 
  • IIT-Kharagpur is ranked at 280.
  • IIT-Guwahati, in the joint-395th rank has entered the global top-400 for the first time.
  • IIT-Hyderabad, in the 591-600 rank band, enjoys its first year ever in the top 600.
  • The Jawaharlal Nehru University has made its debut in the QS World University Rankings and is placed in the 561-570 band.

India’s Performance

• Increase in CPF scores: Indian universities have also improved their research impact, relative to global competitors. Seventeen of India’s 35 universities have seen a rise in their CPF score, against only 12 drops in CPF. IISc has got a perfect score of 100 out of 100 for the citations per faculty (CPF) metric.
• Decline in faculty/student ratio: However, Indian universities continue to struggle in QS’s measure of institutional teaching capacity. Twenty-three of India’s 35 universities have suffered declines in QS’s faculty/student ratio indicator, with only six recording improvements. No Indian university ranks among the top 250 in the faculty/student ratio category.
• Progress in Academic reputation: Indian universities have made consistent progress in QSs academic reputation metric with 20 of India’s 35 entrants improving their scores, while only nine have experienced drops in their rank. IISc Bengaluru ranked number 1 in the world for research. 
• Rise as a Vishwaguru: India is taking a leap in the field of Education and Research and is emerging as a Vishwaguru. The initiatives such as National Education Policy – 2020 and Institute of Eminence (IoE) are instrumental in ranking our colleges and institutes globally.

Challenges for Higher Education in India

• Gap between the Supply and demand: In higher education, India has a low rate of enrolment i.e. gross enrolment ratio (GER), at only 26.3%. 
• Inadequate Student-Faculty Ratio: In most of the state and central universities more than 30% of faculty positions are lying vacant. While the student enrolment in higher education is growing at a faster rate in the last few years. 
• Inadequate Infrastructure and Facilities: Apart from the highly recognized higher educational institutes (HEIs) in India, many institutes are running without proper infrastructure, high-end research facilities and basic facilities like library, hostels, transport, sports facility etc. which is desirable to rank the quality institution.
• Outdated Curriculum: Indian higher education is facing the problem of poor quality of curriculum. In most of the higher educational institutes curriculum is out-dated and irrelevant.
• Lack of Quality Research work: There is no shortage of funding for the top Indian Institutions such as IITs, IIMs and other institutes of national importance. Due to the limited focus on Research and Internationalization, very few Indian higher educational institutes are globally recognized. 
• Less Research Papers: Number of Research papers published in India has increased continuously for the past few decades but is reflected in low citation impact if compared with other countries like Germany, United States, France and China. 
• Low employability: Only a small proportion of Indian graduates are considered employable. Placement outcomes also drop significantly as we move away from the top institutes. Presently there is very little collaboration of higher educational institutes with industries.

Suggestions for improvements

• Requires transformational approach: There is a need to implement an innovative and transformational approach from primary to higher education level to make Indian educational system globally more relevant and competitive. 
• Greater industrial co-operation: In higher educational institutes (HEIs), Industrial co-operation must be there for the development of curriculum, organizing expert lectures, internships, live projects, career counseling and placements.
• Improve Quality & Credibility: Higher educational institutes (HEIs) need to improve quality, reputation and establish credibility through student exchange, faculty exchange programs, and other collaborations with high- quality national and international higher educational institutes. 
• Foreign Collaboration: Government must promote collaboration between Indian higher education institutes and top International institutes and also generate linkage between national research laboratories and research centers of top institutions for better quality and collaborative research. 
• Placement for under-Graduates: There is a need to focus on the graduate students by providing them such courses in which they can achieve excellence, gain deeper knowledge of the subject so that they will get jobs after recruitment in the companies which would reduce unnecessary rush to higher education. 

Way Forward

• For India to emerge as a global innovation hub, the youth of our country, especially in higher education institutions (HEIs) need to play a crucial role to create a sustainable innovation ecosystem. 
• The Prime Minister of India has declared the decade 2010-20 as the ‘Decade of Innovation’, to unleash the creative potential of every Indian. 
• Thus, ideally all HEIs should have a comprehensive and functional mechanism to convert research into innovations.

To improve the higher education system, there is a need to improve teaching pedagogy, build synergies between research and teaching, facilitate alliance of higher institutions among themselves, research centers and industries.