IIT Madras, Kanpur added to the QS ranking of top 50 universities in Asia

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Kanpur, were inducted  in the latest top-50 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rankings Asia 2016, pushing the total number of Indian institutes to feature in the list, to a respectable five. IIT Madras jumped 13 ranks and was placed at 43, while IIT Kanpur stood at 48th position, jumping 10 ranks from its previous position, reported Business Standard. The other Indian universities to have been ranked in the top 50 are Indian Institute of Sciences Bangalore (IISc), IIT Bombay (35) and IIT Delhi(36). [caption id=“attachment_2619950” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  IIT Madras. Image courtesy: IBNLive[/caption] Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, this year rose one rank to reach the 33rd position. It achieved a perfect score for ‘papers per faculty’ , demonstrating the importance research work

Delhi University (DU), which had secured 91st position last year, has jumped several ranks and was ranked 66th, this year.

University of Calcutta was ranked 108th, a big jump from 149th last year, University of Mumbai 145th, while Banaras Hindu University is placed at 155th position. Punjab University is in the 251 to 300 bracket. India, performance wise, ranks fifth best, from all the 17 countries that feature in this rating. While India has 23 universities in the extended list of the top 350 universities, it is falls behind Taiwan (34), South Korea (54), Japan (72) and China (82), reported The Hindu. The National University of Singapore and University of Hong Kong retained their first and second positions, respectively. The London-based education and career consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Ranking system uses six performance indicators to assess universities in four areas: research, teaching, employability and internationalization. The six indicator are: Academic reputation, employers reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio and international student ratio. QS has added another metric this year - staff with a PhD - in order to add another dimension to its analyses of teaching quality. NUS, that ranked No. 1 for the third year running, acquired a perfect score in four metrics: academic reputation; employer reputation; citations per paper,and international faculty, reported StraitsTimes. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) broke into the top three of the QS Ranking systems, a mere 0.1 points behind Hong Kong University, which was ranked second. NTU performed extremely well in research, being number one for citations per paper in India. NTU’s  president proclaimed that the higher rank accorded to the university was proof of the extensive investment made in Research, as reported by TodayOnline. Closer to home, the NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) every year, releases a list of the top universities, engineering colleges, architectural institutions and management institutions in the country. The Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology this year too dominated the engineering category, while the Management category is dominated by Indian Institutes of Management. In the university category, IISc Bengaluru and Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Mumbai top the list, followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University and University of Hyderabad. While the importance of these ranks has often been scrutinized, a national ranking system, will propel institutions into higher world rankings, said a Firstpost report. According to a study on the importance of national rankings, a combination study of the national and international rankings of universities will help create better research policies and help universities become better.