QS rankings: Panjab University drops out of top 50 varsities

CHANDIGARH: Panjab University (PU) was on Tuesday shut out of top 50 Indian universities in the QS Indian University Rankings 2020, continuing its streak of slipping in rankings.
PU was placed in the 51-55 rank slab against the 49th rank it had secured last year.

This was the second edition of QS rankings exclusively for Indian institutions.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, emerged as the best higher education institute in India for the second consecutive year.The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, was at number two and IIT-Delhi at number three. IIT-Madras was at number four, followed by IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur at numbers five and six.

Among the institutes in the region, IIT-Ropar and Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, were ranked higher than PU, at 25th and 30th spots.
The QS ranked the education institutions on eight parameters with different weightages. The parameters were academic reputation (30%), employer reputation (20%), faculty-student ratio (20%), international faculty (2.5%), international students (2.5%), faculty staff with PhD (10%), research papers per faculty (10%) and citation per paper (5%).
Earlier this year, PU slipped out of top 1,000 World University Rankings of the QS as well. The rankings had cost PU a status of eminence from the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The UGC, based on a committee, had recommended the status of institute of eminence for 10 government and 10 private universities as per their rankings of the QS 2020 world universities.
PU had ranked 14th in the list of government universities and missed out from being recommended. The institute of eminence status would bring complete academic and administrative autonomy to a university and additional funding of up to Rs 1,000 crore per academic year.
Prof Ashish Jain, the director of PU’s internal quality assurance cell (IQAC), said the QS rankings were based on subjective parameters more than the objective ones.
“In QS, more weightage is given to perception and reputation than research and citation. PU is improving on a lot of aspects but it does not reflect in the QS rankings because of its subjective system of evaluation. Wherever there is an objective evaluation, PU has improved its ranking,” Prof Jain said.
The university had objected to the UGC recommending institute of eminence based on the QS World Ranking 2020. However, the UGC had maintained since the purpose of granting the status of institute of eminence was to prepare Indian universities for international ranking, it had considered the QS rankings for evaluation and recommendation.
PU scored 33.6 points and 20.3 points on academic reputation and employer reputation. Institutes like IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi and IISc Bangalore score around 95 points in both the parameters. IIT-Ropar only got 3.8 points in academic reputation, but scored high in research papers and citations.