‘Global ranking parameters to assess institutions are skewed’

‘Global ranking parameters to assess institutions are skewed’

14/06/2020

Indian educational institutions fare poorly on global assessments — like in this week’s QS World University Rankings — as their parameters are skewed, says IIT-Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao, suggesting that if a parameter on the cost of education was included, Indian institutes would rank in the top 50. In an interview with The Hindu, he suggested that the government highlight the conflicts of interest in the business model of ranking agencies, and also launch a global campaign on the lines of Incredible India to improve the perception of Indian higher education worldwide.

Why are Indian institutions struggling to rise on these kinds of international rankings?

On three parameters, Indian institutions don’t do well. In international faculty and international students, we get zero points as they look at the ratio of Indian to international students. On faculty-student ratio also, we perform very poorly, because we only count full-time faculty. But in a U.S. institution, even PhD students who teach a class, teaching assistants and research assistants, are included.

Of the remaining parameters, one is research impact. We actually don’t do very badly. Last year, we were close to the 40th rank. The rest is all perception. In India, everybody knows us, what we are doing. But how many times do you hear of an IIT in Japan or Australia or New Zealand? Even a second-tier institution in the U.S. would be perceived to be better than a top institution in India. It also goes with the image of the country.

Are these rankings useful in the Indian context?

Well, the media is taking it seriously and it becomes front page news.

The media has been taking it more seriously in the last couple of years because the government is taking it seriously. The Institute of Eminence scheme uses these rankings as a benchmark.

These rankings are not being fair to India. For example, let them introduce a parameter on the cost of education. For a certain quality of education, how much do our students pay and how much would a student in the U.S. pay? If you introduce that and give it 20% weightage, Indian institutions will compete with the best in the U.S. These rankings all depend on what parameters you have and who benefits from that. These are all designed to pull up institutions in those countries.

Do the benchmarks mentioned in IoE scheme need to be changed?

In terms of measurable parameters, we can improve. For example, our research budget at IIT-D has gone up from ₹100 crore to ₹500 crore in the last four years. Even if you look at our citations, we have been growing, in terms of the number of papers, at least 20% per year. We would have doubled in the last five years. But if you look at our international rankings, nothing has changed.

The Ministry says it has now formed a committee, including IIT directors to improve perception...

The problem is that if I need to launch a campaign for IIT-Delhi, let’s say in New Zealand, I cannot do that. I don’t have resources to launch a campaign for my own institute. It has to be done at the government level. If the government launches a Study in India campaign for Indian education using a brand-building company and then advertises it on CNN, BBC, I think that would have created an image for our institutions.

In the absence of that, it is difficult given that perception gets 50% weightage in some of these rankings.

You have mentioned the possibility of using NIRF rankings globally. How would that work?

NIRF is very transparent, it has government backing, and everything is based on the data. So I’m saying NIRF can join hands with QS or THE and then define parameters which suit Indian institutions.