The Ministry of Human Resource Development has directed the reputed Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) to present an action plan to improve their national and international rankings.
Notably, the Union HRD Minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ had also escalated the issue of rankings in the recently conducted meeting of the IIT Council, the apex decision making body of 23 IITs in the country.
Speaking on the latest development, a senior HRD minister said, “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”.
QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) and Times Higher Education (THE) are two of the most prominent higher education surveys in the world. However, Indian Institutes including the most celebrated IIT’s have failed to leave an impact and found a place in the top 100 in these lists.
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But on the other hand, western institutes, such as Oxford University and MIT have continuously bagged the top positions in the survey.
However, this year, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and IISc-Bangalore found spots among the top 200 universities in the prestigious world rankings released by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
Interestingly, the HRD ministry also organised a review meeting with QS to determine the reason why India’s reputed universities such as JNU, Hyderabad University have not been able to make it to the ranking list.
Notably, the HRD Ministry releases its own rankings annually on the basis of National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF).
