More autonomy to top institutes and varsities: Javadekar

IISc, Miranda House, IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Madras top their respective categories

The government would provide more autonomy and grants to top institutes and universities to promote competition, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Monday, while releasing a ranking of educational institutions.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development’s second edition of rankings were of top universities, management institutes, engineering colleges and pharmacy colleges. New parameters were added to the adjudicating process. This year, the government also provided an overall ranking and added degree colleges. About 3,300 colleges and varsities were covered.

The overall top rankings were given to IISc, IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Delhi, in that order. Among degree colleges, Miranda House was ranked the best. Loyola College in Chennai and Sri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, came second and third, respectively. The government said Hindu, Hansraj, Delhi School of Economic and St Stephen didn’t participate.

Among universities, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) came on top, followed by the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Banaras Hindu University. “Jadavpur and JNU haven’t got good rankings for raising slogan for Afzal Guru (who was hanged for the attack on Parliament) but for good research,” Javadekar said. “The rankings would help parents and teacher take a decision about quality education.”

Employers’ perception, public perception and academic perception were given more weight this year. The other parameters were teaching learning, research and professional practice, graduation outcome, outreach and inclusivity. The minister said the institutes of higher education must produce skilled manpower as most students failed to find jobs after studies.

The government has this year included institutes of national importance such as the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), central varsities and colleges with more than 1,000 students. IIM-Ahmedabad topped the list of management institutes, followed by the IIMs in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Lucknow and Kozhikode. 

IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur topped the engineering colleges’ list. 

Jamia Hamdard, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research in Mohali, University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Chandigarh were the top three pharmacy colleges.

K K Sharma, higher education secretary in MHRD, said the top 1,000 institutes contributed around 80 per cent of research work. "There is a significant scope of improvement in higher education. MHRD, University Grant Commission, All India Council of Technical Educational, and state governments would have to work to improve on improving the quality," Sharma said.