HRD asks IITs to come up with action plan to improve national, international rankings

The HRD Ministry has directed the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to come up with an action plan to improve their national and international rankings.

Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' had also raised the issue of rankings in the recent meeting of the IIT Council, the highest decision-making body of 23 IITs.

"The issue was discussed in the Council meeting. It is important to work on research excellence. The IITs have been asked to work on improving their national and international rankings. For this each, IIT will come up with an action plan," a senior HRD Ministry official said.

The QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) and Times Higher Education (THE), both of which are based in London, are two of the most prominent higher-education surveys in the world.

But even the most celebrated Indian institutes - including the IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) - have consistently failed to make it to the top 100 in these lists, with western institutions such as Oxford University and MIT continuing to hold the top positions.

This year, three Indian institutes -- IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and IISc-Bangalore -- had found spots among the top 200 in the prestigious world university rankings released by QS. However, none of the Indian institutions made it to the top 200 list in the ranking.

The HRD Ministry had also called a review meeting with officials at QS to examine the reasons behind several prestigious Indian varsities, including JNU and the Hyderabad University, not finding top spots ranking.

The HRD Ministry also comes out with its own rankings annually based on the National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF).