With an estimated 32 percent of the country’s students in higher education enrolled in government universities, the annual EW India Higher Education Rankings 2020-21 has introduced separate league tables rating the country’s 150 most reputed government universities – Summiya Yasmeen Although since the dawn of the new millennium when several state governments began liberally legislating promotion of private universities, the country’s 513 publicly-funded government universities have lost their sheen, they still dominate India’s higher education system. According to the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC) data (2020), currently 409 state and 50 Central government, 127 deemed (government and private) and 349 private varsities are providing higher education countrywide. Within the public higher education system, the 50 Central universities (budget: Rs.7,463.26 crore in 2020-21) and deemed universities are top of the tree followed by 409 state government varsities. Once reputed for their high academic quality and excellent faculty, the majority of India’s 409 state universities are in a shambles ruined by meddling rustic politicians, over-the-top caste-based selection of faculty and students, and over-subsidisation of tuition fees. Yet, since an estimated 32 percent of the country’s 37.4 million students in higher education are enrolled in government universities, this year the annual EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings 2020-21, which hitherto ranked private universities, has introduced separate league tables rating the country’s 150 most reputed government varsities under ten parameters of higher education excellence and ranks them inter se. To conduct the EW India Government University Rankings 2020-21, over 150 field personnel of the highlyreputed Delhi-based market research and opinion polls company, Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore), interviewed 4,168 sample respondents comprising 2,214 faculty and 1,126 final year students of 162 universities, and 828 industry representatives in 25 cities countrywide. They were persuaded to award public universities they are familiar with, scores of 1-300 on ten parameters of higher education excellence, viz, faculty competence, faculty welfare & development, research and innovation, curriculum and pedagogy, industry interface, placements, infrastructure, internationalism, leadership/governance and range and diversity of study programmes offered. Higher weightage is given to the critical parameters of faculty competence (150), research and innovation (300) and infrastructure (150). “This year’s rankings league table is based on a mix of factual objective criteria and perceptions of knowledgeable sample respondents. Objective data has been culled from papers published by faculty in refereed journals and number of citations was obtained from secondary sources including the Scopus index. Twenty percent weightage is given to publications and citations in refereed journals worldwide,” says Premchand Palety, founder- CEO of C fore. Unsurprisingly, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc, estb.1909) is ranked the country’s #1 higher education institution in the EW Government University Rankings 2020-21, with top scores under seven of the ten parameters of higher education excellence including research and innovation, given highest weightage (300), in the survey. Promoted in 1909 through a generous land grant from pioneer industrialist J.N. Tata who founded the Mumbai-based Tata business empire, IISc with an enrolment of 4,200 students, including 2,750 doctoral students, mentored by 500…
