Since government universities offer highly subsidised higher education they are more affordable for the great majority of the country’s 260 million households. Hence they are preferred by the majority of school and college leavers – Summiya Yasmeen Though with their expansive state-of-the-art campuses, high-quality faculty and new-age study programmes, India’s new-genre globally benchmarked private universities are emerging as the preferred option of the best and brightest school-leavers entering India’s higher education system, the country’s Central and state government universities can’t be written off. According to latest data (2021) of the University Grants Commission (UGC), currently 425 state and 54 Central government, 125 deemed (government and private) and 375 private varsities are providing higher education to 37.4 million students in higher education. Of them, 32 percent are enrolled in government universities. More important, the country’s 425 state government universities affiliate over 38,000 junior and undergraduate colleges within their jurisdictions, prescribe their syllabuses, sanction new study programmes and conduct examinations. Therefore last year, the annual EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings, which were initially restricted to ranking private universities, introduced separate league tables rating and ranking the country’s 150 best reputed Central and state government varsities. With government institutions offering highly subsidised higher education, they are more affordable for the great majority of the country’s 260 million households. Although attractive, private universities levy tuition and other fees that are astronomical relative to government universities. Hence, the latter are preferred by the majority of school-leavers and deserve to be ranked separately inter see. To conduct the EW India Government University Rankings 2021-22, the highly-reputed Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb.2000) interviewed 4,141 sample respondents comprising 2,122 faculty, 1,136 final year students of 154 universities, and 883 industry representatives in 25 cities countrywide. These respondents were persuaded to award public universities of whom they have sufficient knowledge scores of 1-300 on ten parameters of higher education excellence, viz, faculty competence, faculty welfare development, research and innovation, curriculum and pedagogy (digital readiness), industry interface, placements, infrastructure, internationalism, leadership/governance and range and diversity of study programmes. Higher weightage is given to the critical parameters of faculty competence (150), research and innovation (300) and infrastructure (150). “The EW Government University Rankings 2021-22 are based on a mix of objective criteria and perceptions of sample respondents. Objective research data published in refereed journals and number of citations was obtained from secondary sources such as Scopus. Simultaneously, a perceptual survey was conducted among knowledgeable stakeholders including faculty, students and industry representatives to rate the most well-reputed government universities on the selected parameters of higher education excellence. The scores awarded by sample respondents under each parameter were totalled to rank government universities inter se,” says Premchand Palety, founder-CEO of C fore, explaining the institutional rankings methodology. Unsurprisingly, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc) is again ranked India’s #1 government university with top scores under a record eight of the ten parameters of higher education excellence including research and innovation, given…
