Beneficial rankings THANKS FOR publishing the comprehensive EW India Higher Education Rankings 2021-22 (EW May). With the raging Covid-19 pandemic forcing shutdown of all education institutions nationwide, your rankings are a timely celebration of the country’s best colleges and universities which are making every effort to ensure learning continuity of students during this difficult time. Academic rankings are an important public service for enabling school and college-leavers to choose the most suitable undergrad colleges and universities, as also for promoting institutional excellence, and improving teaching, learning and research across the spectrum. Keep up the good work! Supriya Sanyal, Delhi Demeaning rank IN THE EW Private Autonomous Colleges Rankings 2021-22 (EW May), Sri Durga Malleswara Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala, Vijayawada is ranked #94 nationally and #14 in Andhra Pradesh. This ranking demeans the college’s reputation which has taken years to build. Our alumni, parents and students are equally disappointed and demotivated with our scores under all parameters of collegiate education excellence. Ours is one of the best women’s colleges in Vijayawada and is the only college to be awarded A++ by NACC among all degree and engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh. We offer the best in terms of infrastructure, leadership, governance, management, institutional values, best teaching and learning practices and placements. Consider this as our humble appeal to revise your rankings survey. Dr. T. Vijaya Lakshmi Director, Sri Durga Malleswara Siddhartha Mahila Kalasala VIJAYAWADA As detailed in our cover story, the EW India Private Autonomous Colleges Rankings 2021-22 is based on scores awarded under five parameters of higher education excellence by 3,956 sample respondents including college/university faculty and final year college students who rated India’s Top 500 colleges —private autonomous, government autonomous and non-autonomous. Take steps to raise your public profile— Editor Careless complaint WE APPRECIATE the efforts taken by EducationWorld to rank the country’s Top 500 colleges. However, please note that although Pillai College of Arts, Commerce & Science (Autonomous), Navi Mumbai is ranked #31 in the national league, it’s not ranked in the state league tables. Please include our college in the Maharashtra league table as well. Deepika Sharma Vice principal, Pillai College of Arts, Commerce & Science (Autonomous) NEW PANVEL Automatic promotion call THE MAHARASHTRA education news report by Dipta Joshi (EW May) accurately reflects the fears and concerns of a large majority of parents in the state worried about abolition of the class X public exam. While students are happy that the state government has cancelled it because of the huge surge in Covid cases, there is rising concern about how the majority of students will be evaluated. Most state board schools have not conducted online tests, given home assignments, checked daily online attendance and project work. Also many children have not been able to attend online classes regularly because of lack of Internet connectivity. In the circumstances when there has been large-scale education disruption, it’s difficult to formulate a fair and unbiased evaluation policy. I urge the government to automatically promote all students to class XI. Vinit…
