3 Indian institutes in world's top 200 universities but their rating dips

Three premier institutes led by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, followed closely by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and IIT Delhi have featured in the top 200 QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings.
However, all three—along with 11 others—have dropped in their rankings over the past 12 months.
IIT Bombay has retained its status as India’s premier university at 172nd global rank, though it fell 20 places from 152 last year.
IISc Bangalore and IIT Delhi were the second- and third-ranked Indian institutes at 185th and 193rd places, respectively. IISc fell from 184th rank and IIT Delhi from 182nd.
The QS World University Rankings, produced by global higher education consultancy QS Quacquarelli Symonds, rate the world’s top 1,000 universities.
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In total, 21 Indian higher education institutions have found their place among the world’s top 1,000. Of these 21, 14 have fallen in rank over the past 12 months, while four have improved their position.
According to QS, Indian higher education institutions perform strongly in research quality, even though they fail to increase their academic standing, teaching capacity, and levels of internationalisation at the same rate as their global competitors.
This was evident from the fact that IISc Bangalore emerged the second-best globally, in terms research citations per faculty with a world rank No. 2, followed by IIT Roorkee winning the 20th position globally for the parameter.
The QS World University Rankings are an aggregate of weighting given for various parameters, including academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, research citations per faculty, international faculty, and international students.
For instance, IIT Bombay earned 93rd place in terms of employer reputation — the best among Indian institutes globally. Incidentally, almost all featured Indian institutes were ranked below 601 for international faculty and international students, except OP Jindal Global University, which was ranked at 473rd position in the former parameter.
According to Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, the QS World University Rankings are both a relative indicator and a moving target. This means that a university’s performance is judged relative to its competitors, and that improvements in performance can see an institution drop if other competitors are improving at a faster rate.
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“Though India’s universities have dropped as a group this year, this is frequently because of other universities across the world making increasingly intense efforts to enhance their educational offerings. To regain lost ground, Indian higher education must find ways of increasing teaching capacity, and of attracting more talented students and faculty across the world to study in India. There is plenty of potential, and there are pockets of excellence, within the Indian system,” Sowter said on the rankings.
Meanwhile, apart from the top three ranked Indian institutes, the others include IIT Madras at 275th rank, IIT Kharagpur (314), IIT Kanpur (350), IIT Roorkee (383), IIT Guwahati (470), University of Delhi in the 501-510 rank band, and IIT Hyderabad in the 601-650 rank band, forming the top 10 Indian institutes in the rankings.

IIT Foundation for Accreditation to accredit engineering colleges

Engineering colleges in the country will no longer be accredited by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) and the role will be taken over by a new company --IIT Foundation for Accreditation and Assessment (IFAA).
The company established recently, having IIT Madras, IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur as founding partners, is now looking for a CEO.
The HRD Ministry had proposed formation of a Section-8 Company under Companies Act, 2013 for the purpose of undertaking accreditation, through participation of IITs and IIMs and a company by the name of IFAA has been established.
"The company incorporated will attempt to expedite the accreditation process, operating in a self-sustainable mode, a senior official, who is member of the IIT Council said.
The CEO appointed from amongst the serving or superannuated IIT Faculty, will be responsible for overall operation, academic, administrative and financial functions of the company, in developing an objective framework for assessment, which shall be efficient and transparent to undertake accreditation needs of colleges and universities offering engineering and science education, the official added.
The idea of making the IITs parallel assessors alongside the NBA and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) by setting up accreditation centres in the prestigious institutions was mooted by former HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.
Initially, several IIT directors loathed the idea, saying the proposed role would dilute the tech schools' core mandate of teaching and research in technical education but they agreed to provide "limited" assistance and expertise so that their core functions would remain unaffected.
Later, it was decided to set up a company which operates in a self-sustainable mode.
The company will also address and participate in any open call or invitation to extend its services to the University Grants Commission (UGC) or All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for undertaking accreditation activities. The company will be free from any interference from the Ministry or IITS, the official said.

Know what's a Super Dream job? Fancy packages surge at non-IIT tech schools

It’s not just the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) but also the non-IIT engineering colleges that have seen attractive job offers and compensation packages during their final placements this year.

Institutes like BITS Pilani, SRM University and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) have registered robust growth in job offers.

For instance, at VIT, ‘Super Dream’ offer, which is a salary package above Rs 1 million, was bagged this year by around 614 students against 360 last year. Moreover, dream offers, which is between Rs 4,50,000 and Rs 1 million has been given to 1,820 students so far and the recruitment under this category is still on.

“Some of the trends observed this year include higher salary packages and offers. Expectations of the recruiters are also growing, with higher demand for students having coding knowledge even with non-computer courses,” said V Samuel Rajkumar, director, placement and training, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT).

At BITS Pilani, which has almost completed its first hiring cycle, the rate of placement has gone up by 20.4 per cent this year compared to last year. It had placed 844 students in the August to December cycle, against 700 last year. The second cycle will begin from January 2019 and go up to May-June 2019, wherein BITS Pilani is hopeful of getting around 95 per cent students placed.

Average compensation packages at BITS Pilani have risen from Rs 1.45 million per annum last year to Rs 1.55 million this year, with the highest package offered so far by an international company standing at $13,700 per annum.

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At SRM University, with four more months of placement remaining, the institution has crossed around 5,000 offers on campus, of which around 4,730 are in engineering courses, till the third week of November. By then, it has seen a 30 per cent increase in the number of companies visiting the campus compared to the same period of last year.

Last year, for the whole placement season, it had seen around 540 companies visit the campus. The varsity hopes that more companies will come to the campus this year.

Sector-wise, the non-IIT engineering colleges are seeing a growing interest from captive research and IT companies.

Some of the new segments like biotech and biopharmaceutical engineering are also attracting interest from the industry, said senior officials from these institutions. “This year, the placement season is good. Biotech and Biopharmaceutical segments have seen better growth compared to two years back, which could be considered a new trend. The companies have become stringent in terms of tests. Salary packages saw an overall growth this year,” said Sriram S Padmanabhan, director (Career Center), SRM University.

One thing that has been emphasised this year is that the companies are getting more stringent in terms of recruitment and those specialised positions which they recruit after rigorous selection also are seeing handsome salary packages.


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Also, while companies hiring freshers have looked for basic skills so far, this year more niche and digital skills are in demand. Essentially hiring is up for analytics and data science.

“The data analytics space is picking up in a big way. Also, within the technology segment, artificial intelligence, internet of things and machine learning, the hiring is upbeat,” said Balasubramanian Gurumurthy, chief placement officer at BITS Pilani, which has so far hosted 231 firms this year against 200 last year. Companies like PriceWaterhouseCoopers & ZS Associates are conducting workshops for students in some of these areas on campus.

Accenture, ZS Associates, Indus Insights, Epsilon and others are hiring for data science roles while companies like Microsoft, Intel & ServiceNow, are hiring in the IoT space. In the ongoing placement cycle of the academic year 2018-19, more than 55 students have been placed in data science roles.

Also, start-ups are one of the preferred sectors at the college as progression is faster in this sector, he added. Some of the major startups that participated were Cohesity, Zen drive & Swiggy offering compensation over Rs 20 lakh while Oyo rooms, Jivox & Hyperdart Technologies offered between Rs 10 and Rs 15 lakh.