University rankings to add ‘India-specific’ parameters

The Economic Times 10 January 2014

Indian institutions could improve their scores dramatically in Times Higher Education's World University Rankings as the British magazine has agreed to develop and include India-specific parameters for assessment, writes Urmi A Goswami for The Economic Times.

Confirming the development, education secretary Ashok Thakur said the human resource development ministry had asked all groupings of domestic institutions such as the Indian institutes of technology, national institutes of technology and central universities to appoint a nodal person to coordinate with Times Higher Education to develop India-specific parameters.

Domestic institutions have long argued that the rankings, which give 55% weighting to research indicators and 30% to teaching environment including 15% to the faculty, do not take into account extenuating ‘Indian circumstances’. There is little clarity on what exactly constitutes ‘Indian circumstances’ except the constitutionally mandated reservation quotas and the cross-cutting quota for physically-challenged people. But issues including intake of foreign students, foreign faculty, marketing and branding of institutions will be addressed while designing India-specific parameters for assessment.
Full report on The Economic Times site

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