Within the media and the public, there’s little awareness that the country’s 266 private universities, 2,415 B-schools and 2,776 engineering institutes provide good, bad and indifferent education to 65 percent of the country’s 29 million youth in higher education, here are EducationWorld India Private Higher Education Rankings 2017-18 – Dilip Thakore As usual, publication of the annual EducationWorld Top 100 private universities, private engineering colleges and B-schools summer league tables has been preceded by the Union human resource development ministry’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2017 which ranks government and private universities, colleges and professional colleges (engineering, business management, pharmacy). NIRF 2017 was released by Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar in New Delhi on April 3 with heavily subsidised Central government universities — the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, Benares Hindu, Jadavpur (Kolkata) and Delhi universities — dominating the separate ‘overall and ‘universities league tables. Surprisingly, Indias top-ranked private university in the NIRF 2017 is the Coimbatore-based Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, ranked #9. Although widely welcomed, the annual NIRF league tables have been compiled in typically slipshod government style. For one, ‘participation’ is voluntary with participating universities required to furnish extensive documentation. Consequently several reputed institutions such as St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Christ University, Bangalore, and Mumbai University among others, are not in the NIRF league table of Top 100 universities. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, despite the huge resources of the Central government to check and cross-check submitted data, this obligation is neglected with the result that NIRF 2017 stretches public credulity. For instance in NIRF 2017, the almost unknown Savitribai Phule University, Pune at #11 is ranked above the highly-reputed Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, VIT University, Vellore, and Manipal University. Curiously, although the latter was conferred deemed university status and renamed in 1993, it is described as the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in NIRF 2017. Moreover, Tezpur University whose #5 ranking last year aroused derisive media and academia comment is relegated to #30 this year, but still above the highly-reputed Tata Institute of Social Sciences (estb. 1936), and the massively advertised Amity University with 150,000 students in ten campuses in India and eight abroad — including a recently inaugurated 170-acre campus in the US — which is ranked #52 in NIRF 2017. Another shocking omission is the newly-established (2014) uniquely crowd-funded, new genre liberal arts Ashoka University, Sonipat (Delhi NCR), equipped with a star-studded, internationally-recruited faculty which attracted eight admission applications for every available seat in 2016. On the other hand in the EducationWorld India Top 100 Private University Rankings 2017-18, Manipal and Amity universities are jointly ranked #1 and BITS, Pilani, and VIT are ranked among the Top 5, while Ashoka University has vaulted from #9 last year to #5. Even after making allowances for the deep prejudice of the left-liberal establishment against private universities and institutions, the low ranking awarded to these superbly-equipped and well-managed private universities with faculty from around the world, stretches the…
