The country’s Top 100 private universities, engineering institutes, B-schools and arts, science and commerce colleges, which topped the EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings 2019-20 league tables, were acclaimed by a distinguished assembly of over 200 leaders of academia – Summiya Yasmeen

The country’s Top 100 private universities, engineering institutions, B-schools and multi-disciplinary arts, science and commerce colleges were celebrated and felicitated before a packed audience at the third EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings (EWIPHER) 2019-20 Awards day on June 22. Higher education institutions which topped the EducationWorld Rankings 2019-20 league tables published in May, were acclaimed by a distinguished assembly of over 200 trustees, vice chancellors, directors and principals of the country’s most respected higher education institutions.

Welcoming the select gathering of educationists and event partners Sodexo India and Afairs Exhibitions & Media Pvt. Ltd, EducationWorld publisher/editor Dilip Thakore said he is unapologetic about celebrating private initiatives in higher education. “The majority of India’s students are in private higher education institutions. I believe they are more likely to provide India’s youth globally benchmarked education than government institutions run by impersonal bureaucracies,” said Thakore in his address to the distinguished audience.

The awards ceremony was preceded by five keynote addresses delivered by a stellar cast of knowledgeable educationists and public intellectuals — Dr. Parth Shah, president, Centre for Civil Society, Delhi (‘Should foreign university campuses be allowed in India?’); Dr. Shiv Visvanathan, director, Centre for Study of Knowledge Systems, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat (‘Time to end student reservations in higher education?’); Pradip Kanakia, South India managing partner, PriceWaterhouse (‘Is the industry-academia gap widening?’); Dr. Vinod Thomas, registrar Manipal Academy for Higher Education and Dr. Srikanth Rao, director of Manipal Institute of Technology (‘Expediting India’s entry into the World University Rankings’), and Nitin Trikha, country education director, Sodexo India (‘Building universities of the future’). (For their videotaped lectures visit www.educationworld.in or YouTube channel EWPortal).

The keynotes were followed by a lively 60-minute panel discussion chaired by Dilip Thakore on the subject ‘Reviving Indian Higher Education: Roadmap for New Government,’ in which the keynote speakers fielded questions from delegates.

“The EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings Awards event is getting better each year. It was superbly curated and addressed by high calibre, nationally respected educationists. The panel discussion was lively and it was wonderful to network with peers in higher education from across the country. However, I believe we should have taken the opportunity to also debate the higher education reforms proposed in the New Education Policy 2019 draft and submitted a EWIPHER delegates resolution to the government for consideration,” says Abishek Mohan Gupta, pro chancellor of the Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal, ranked Madhya Pradesh’s #1 private university in EWIPHER 2019-20.

The panel discussion was succeeded by the institutional awards ceremony during which over 100 certificates and trophies were awarded to leaders of private higher ed institutions which topped the EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings 2019-20. Among the vice chancellors, deans and trustees conferred awards on the occasion were Dr. Vinod Thomas, registrar of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education; Prof. Annapoorna Gopal of BITS-Pilani; Nitesh Bansal, deputy pro vice chancellor of G.D. Goenka University, Gurgaon; Ali Imran, vice president, Ashoka University; Dr. Rajpal Hande, principal, Mithibhai College, Mumbai; P. Shyama Raju, chancellor of Reva University, Bangalore; Dr. Pranay Chaudhuri, principal of the Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata, Dr. Sudha Vyas, principal, K.J. Somaiya College of Arts & Commerce, Mumbai; Abhishek Mohan Gupta, pro chancellor Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal; H.N. Suresh, director of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore; and Sr. Arpana, principal of Mount Carmel College, Bangalore among others.

An innovation in this year’s EWIPHER Awards was the introduction of the EducationWorld Private Higher Education Grand Jury Awards 2019-20 to acknowledge and felicitate low-profile and newly established private higher education institutions providing quality education in far flung corners of the country. Over 150 newly promoted and unsung higher institutions were assessed and ranked in nine categories including campus design excellence, extraordinary leadership, student diversity, quality of campus life, etc by a specially constituted jury of eminent educationists, and conferred awards on the occasion.

Another highlight of this year’s EWIPHER seminar-cum-awards full-day event was the launch of AHEAD — Alliance for Higher Education Advancement & Development. An EducationWorld initiative, the mission of AHEAD is to build a national coalition of the country’s top private and public higher education institutions and corporates to discuss and debate ways and means to raise higher education teaching-learning and research standards to global norms. Among AHEAD’s prime objectives are facilitating linkages between secondary and higher secondary schools and HEIs (higher education institutions) to ensure that students are adequately prepared to derive the full benefit of tertiary education.

The initial response to AHEAD is overwhelming with 200-plus delegates having already signed up as founder-members. Leaders and faculty of HEIs interested in membership of AHEAD are invited to visit www.educationworld.in.