India has a story of economic success to boast about and there are many millionaires who are listed in the Forbes’s billionaire list. When it comes to higher education, India though it boasts of a highly growing economy, lags behind most of the developed countries.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay was the one and only University that made it to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-12. The Indian Institute Of Technology was ranked number 187, down from Number 163 during 2009.

Criteria for scoring and the scores

The Indian universities in the list of top 500 Universities have an overall score of 30 to 48 while the top 50 Universities have an average score of 75 to 100. The Indian institutes fared low in criteria such as faculty-student ratio, citations per faculty, international students, and international faculty. They have fared high in academic reputation and employer reputation. IIT Bombay which was the only one university in the list had a score of 39 in student faculty ratio, 33 in citations per faculty, 3 in international faculty, and 2 in international students.

Jawaharlal Nehru University was ranked number 121, which went 50 places down from number 70 during 2009. It was ranked 121 among the Arts and Science category. Among the Universities in the Social Sciences and management category, Jawaharlal Nehru University was ranked number 128 which 55 places down when compared to the previous year. The University of Calcutta was ranked number 283, falling by 100 places when compared to the previous year. Delhi University scored a low of 31.2 in the academic criteria where as Cambridge University scored 100 and Peking University scored 76.4.

Quality and skills of students from Indian institutes

The founder of Infosys, the IT giant, Narayana Murthy who is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology- Kanpur, has recently commented on the declining quality of students graduating from the premierengineering and technology institutes in India. According to him the graduates from India are poor in communication skills and social skills which reduce their performance at work. He also added that Indian graduates lack critical thinking ability.

A closer inspection

When we take a closer inspection, it’s clear that the comparison made is not fair. One of the major criteria that are taken into for ranking the institutions is the status of the Universities as a research institution. Sixty per cent of the score accounts for research and research is area where Indian universities lack due to various difficulties.

The universities which form the top notch in the ranking are financially strong with less regulation from the part of the government. Inadequate fund is the main reason which restricts Indian universities from performing in other criteria such as teaching environment and international outlook.

When we compare Indian universities with top universities such as MIT, Harvard and Oxford in terms of funding, we can see that Indian universities are far below them in terms of fund available, especially in the area of research. For example research grants accounts for 60 percent of the total fund that MIT gets, according to Abhinav Mital, senior principal at the Parthenon Group, a consulting firm from Boston.

A study conducted by World Bank ranked California Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the first and second place respectively. Each of these universities has an annual expenditure which runs into 3 billion US dollars where as the research funding for IIT-Bombay was just 36.6 million US dollars.

Expert opinion

According to Mital such a ranking based on research and research spending is a bit biased, because the government of India has been helping the institutes to subsidize operational cost.

Indian universities should focus on making research activities a long term goal. In addition to this they should give priority to expanding the capacity to accommodate more students as a short term objective. The reason for giving importance for expanding capacity is that the institutes in India are already crowded with just 14 per cent of the total population enrolled for higher studies.

Of course, adding capacity for local students will reduce the score in terms of international outlook and the low compensation given to the professors will reduce it even more. The average an Indian faculty member earns as salary is much less than what a faculty member at any of the top institutions in the west earns.  If the Indian institutes are able to pay more, then it will be easy for them to attract foreign talents.

According to Rangnekar, dean of the Indian School of Business, Indian institutions are able to produce high quality students while operating within the constraints. He says that this is the best about Indian institutes.

According to the spokesperson of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the institute had planned to focus on research for the past ten years, but it remained as a long term goal as it had to cater to the needs of the Indian students.

It is up to the universities

The decision lies with the Indian universities, whether to spend the available fund on research or admit more Indian students so that they can have access to quality higher education. Spending more on research will definitely increase the institutes rank in the global arena, but will limit higher education opportunities for the Indian students.

According to Rangnekar, as a developing economy, the focus of Indian universities should be to make students employable with the funds available.

Mital says that the problems that Indian universities are facing are entirely different from that of Universities of the developed countries. In India we are looking to increase capacity and to increase the number of students getting admitted to universities rather than improving the quality of existing students. The priority is providing seats to these students than offering nothing.

Let us wish that with more emphasis given on criteria’s that ranks these institutes Indian institutes will be able to secure top places in the global ranking and produce graduates are a best in class around the world.