India doubles its slots on list of Asia's best universities

Indian Institute of Science tops India list

India has more than doubled its representation on the list of Asia’s best universities, released on Wednesday by the Times Higher Education.

In the Asia University Rankings 2017, India has 33 institutions in the top 300, of which 17 are new entrants. Last year’s list had 16 in the top 300.
 

Eight from India are among the top 100, with the Indian Institute of Science at 27, ranking the highest. The Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (42) and Veltech University (joint 43rd) have made it to the top 50.

For the second year, Singapore’s National University and China’s Peking University ranked first and second, respectively. Only two Japanese institutions were in the top 20, despite the country’s strong representation in the rankings with 69 universities — 23 per cent of the top 300 list. After China with six universities in the top 20, Hong Kong and South Korea were well-represented with five institutions each.

Phil Baty, the editor of Times Higher Education Rankings, said, “It is great news that India has more than doubled its representation in this year’s ranking of Asia’s best universities, claiming 33 places in the top-300 list (up from 16 last year). It means that India is now the third most-represented nation in the table for the first time.”

Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur made an impressive leap from the 101-110 band to 63rd place, due to improvements across the board and a particularly high jump in its industry income. 

“But lower down the table, several Indian universities have slipped, largely due to increased competition. This year’s ranking includes 300 universities, up from 200 last year. For example, the University of Calcutta has dropped from the 141-150 band to the 191-200 cohort while Amrita University has fallen from 181-190 to 251+,” it said.

Pakistan has also made great gains, more than tripling its representation since last year, from two to seven. Sri Lanka made its debut with the University of Colombo making the 251+ band.

“India’s strong performance is partly thanks to the country recognising the importance of participating in global benchmarking exercises...,” added the report. “However, while India punches above its weight in terms of its GDP per capita, it underperforms given its large population of university-aged people.”