Against the backdrop of the rising popularity of private universities which are beginning to establish themselves as formidable competitors not only to public universities in India but also to foreign varsities, for the past five years EducationWorld has been publishing league tables rating and ranking private universities on several parameters of higher education excellence – Dilip Thakore India’s 334 private universities, which for decades have been playing second fiddle to their public, i.e, government owned and funded counterparts, are beginning to establish themselves as formidable competitors not only to public universities in India, but to foreign higher education institutions which were hitherto the preferred destination of school-leavers and college graduates who couldn’t squeeze themselves into the handful of government universities of near-global standard. Now, especially since the historic winds of liberalisation and deregulation swept through the dirigisme (control-and-command) Indian economy in 1991, dozens of private universities modelled after premier private Ivy League universities of America have established good and growing reputations for delivering high quality tertiary education. And although Left intellectuals who still dominate the academy and the media are fighting a rear-guard battle opposing the promotion of private institutions of higher education on the grounds that they levy high tuition fees and are thus ‘elitist’, the plain truth is that the tuition fees of post-liberalisation India’s new crop of private universities and institutes of professional education are a small fraction of the differential higher fees imposed upon foreign students by the US, UK and other countries of the English speaking Commonwealth. Little wonder India’s new genre private universities have benchmarked themselves with the world’s top-ranked higher ed institutions rather than domestically top-ranked public varsities, none of whom are ranked in the global Top 200 World University Rankings (WUR) league tables of the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education. It’s an open secret that because of constant interference by the ubiquitous control-and-command neta-babu brotherhood, over-subsidisation of tuition fees and runaway affirmative action — seat reservation and quotas for numerous castes and socio-economic classes — India’s 907 public universities (some of which are of almost 200 years vintage) are mere ciphers by established international standards of higher education excellence. In the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that the best of India’s new genre private universities have modelled themselves on top-ranked private varsities abroad. And since they offer — or aspire to offer — Ivy League-benchmarked high quality undergraduate and postgrad education at a fraction of the tuition fees demanded by foreign universities, it’s unsurprising that the progeny of post-liberalisation India’s fast-expanding middle class are flocking to them. Against this backdrop of the rising popularity of private universities, for the past five years EducationWorld has been publishing league tables rating and ranking private universities on several parameters of higher education excellence including competence of faculty, faculty welfare and development, research and innovation capability, infrastructure, industry interface, placements, internationalism and leadership and governance. Unlike the Union HRD ministry’s National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) published in early April, which ‘invites’ higher education institutions, including…
