Indian institutions ranking poorly because of perception: V Ramgopal Rao on QS Rankings 2023

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi’s former director V Ramgopal Rao, sharing his take on IIT Delhi’s ranking in QS World University Rankings 2023 , said that “the rightful place for an institution such as IIT Delhi is however among the top 50. We will reach there soon, provided we do a few things right.” IIT Delhi was featured among the top 200 world institutions with an improved rank of 174.

Rao shared a note on the perspective about QS WUR rankings and said in a tweet, “Want to get a perspective on QS World rankings released yesterday with respect to the Indian institutions? Please read on.”

Want to get a perspective on QS World rankings released yesterday with respect to the Indian institutions? Please read on. @worlduniranking #iits #QSRankings #rankings #highereducation pic.twitter.com/UkeXDiM3fF

— V. Ramgopal Rao, Ph.D. (@ramgopal_rao) June 9, 2022

Rao said that QS Quacquaralelli Symonds ranks institutions on the following 6 parameters:

• Academic reputation from global survey (40%)
• Employer reputation from global survey (10%)
• Faculty-student ratio (20%)
• Proportion of international students (5%)
• Proportion of international faculty (5%)
• Citation per faculty scopus (20%)

“As you can see, 50% of weightage (1 and 2) in these rankings is for perception, which is a totally subjective metric. Who you ask decides where you are ranked. We need to improve our perception. Indian institutions are scoring very poorly here,” Rao said.

The former IIT Delhi director said that 30% of the weightage is given to date provided by institutions. “Use your judgement here on how many institutions are truthful in interpreting the QS questionnaire properly and provide the right data,” he said.

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Among all the parameters, point 6 is taken from trusted databases and that is where Indian institutions are ranking highly with IISc Bangalore being on top. Most of the Indian institutions are among the top 100 in this parameter, Rao added.

The professor reasoned that India is ranking poorly not because its top institutions are not “research intensive or poor in quality” but because of perception and lack of international footprint.

V Ramgopal Rao stressed upon going global and developing an international footprint to reach the top spot in these rankings without compromising on other parameters.