Alhough some self-styled educators and educationists may be unaware, EducationWorld which has a record of 22 years of uninterrupted publishing, come floods, famine or pandemic, has been ranking education institutions across the spectrum from preschools to universities since 2007, perhaps the only news magazine worldwide with this record. But given the pathetic condition of the country’s education system, it’s hardly surprising that we are anti-establishment. Therefore, it’s rare for ministers and minions to give your editors interviews and access. I wonder why, when our intent is to highlight education excellence and if at all, offer constructive criticism to reform a moribund education system which has clearly failed to develop the abundant human capital of post-independence India. Regrettably, this culture of unaccountability has also spread to private sector education institutions whose cause and contribution EducationWorld has championed ab initio. It’s not unusual for privately promoted schools and colleges to decline information and access out of an unwarranted sentiment of false modesty which abjures publicity and are content to do their bit for the public weal in a tiny corner of the country. To them my advice is to heed the biblical injunction against hiding their lamp under a bushel. The public interest would be served better if they let their light shine and shared best practices and precepts. The subject of non-cooperation surfaced during the course of laborious preparation of this issue which is Part II of the annual EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings (EWIHER) 2022-23. In April we rated and ranked India’s most admired government and private Arts, Science and Commerce colleges of undergrad education. In this issue we present the country’s most detailed ratings (10-14 parameters of higher education excellence) and rankings of the country’s best private and government universities. Please note that unlike the rankings of several publications which are determined by small committees of jurors, all EW ranking surveys from pre-school to university are based on field interviews conducted by over 100 field personnel of our partner market research and opinion polls company, C fore, Delhi for a period of three-four months. For this survey, they interviewed over 4,000 sample respondents comprising higher education faculty, final year students and industry representatives. The sample respondents were persuaded to award scores under each parameter. These scores were totalled to rank public and private universities in 15 categories (multidisciplinary, engineering, liberal arts, agriculture etc). EWIHER 2022-23, painstakingly collated and published over the past two months, is undoubtedly the most detailed higher education institutions evaluation survey nationwide. School-leaving students, parents and career counsellors who neglect to study them are doing themselves injury.
