 "International rankings decoded: The IITs need more visibility")
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have figured out what keeps them out of international rankings - lack of visibility at the right global forums.
"We do all what international institutes do but just that we need to create more visibility for our research and development initiatives and our research programmes," said an IIT director. "We as academicians only believe in doing our work well and have never paid attention to making ourselves more visible. We have realised we need to do that now."
The director is part of a committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to look into the international positioning of the IITs. The committee will submit its report by December-end.
IIT-Bombay led the fall, dropping five notches at 39th position against 34th last year. While IIT-Delhi fell two places to secure the 38th position against 36th last year, IIT-Madras fell four positions to rank at 49 against 45 last year.
IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Kharagpur fell four and two places, respectively, to rank at 51 and 58. While IIT-Roorkee fell one place to rank at 66, IIT -Guwahati held its 89 position as last year. University of Delhi also figures in the list at 78th position, as in 2012. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology topped the Asian rankings followed by a number of Chinese, Japanese and Korean institutions.
The IITs also slipped in the Top 200 university rankings. IIT-Delhi slipped 10 notches to figure at 222, down from 212 last year. US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list with Harvard University securing the second position.
"The stable performance of Indian institutions is a reflection on the country's efforts to internationalise its higher education system. However, it's clear that more efforts are needed in the area if the country's institutions wish to feature more prominently at the top of global rankings," said Ben Sowter, head of research at QS.
Following this lack-lustre show, MHRD decided to constitute a committee of four IIT directors. The annual rankings consider the subject range, research results and academic reputation offered by institutions.
The IIT directors who are part of the committee said the premier engineering institutes need to be more visible at international conferences and publish more in major international journals. International faculty and international students on campus are also a factor that needs to be looked into.
"We need to create infrastructure for foreign faculty and students to be here. This is one aspect which requires a serious thought," an IIT director added.
Moreover, the IITs need to look into their finances to create infrastructure.
The IITs raised their tuition fees to Rs 90,000 a year from this academic year, up from last year's Rs 50,000. Even after the increase, the fees cover just over a fourth of the actual expenditure on students.
The IITs spend Rs 3.4 lakh on a student in a year. "Though we spend more on students than we charge them in terms of fee, we also have a responsibility as public institutions. We cannot expect student fees to take care of the entire expenses - capital plus operating costs," said Devang Khakhar, director, IIT-Bombay.
Where the IITs score well is on the faculty-student ratio, which stands at 1:15.
This is despite the fact that 41 per cent of the teaching posts are vacant in the older IITs. There are only 3,158 regular teaching staff against the sanctioned strength of teaching staff of 5,356.
Vacancy for teaching posts is the highest at IIT-Bhubaneswar (57 per cent), followed by IIT-Delhi (50 per cent), IIT-Kharagpur (48 per cent) and IIT-Guwahati (42 per cent). In the remaining four IITs, the vacant positions range between 19 per cent and 38 per cent.
In the next five years, the IITs hope to overcome the problem of faculty crunch. In addition to this, attracting youngsters to academics and research is a big challenge, the IITs said.
"We are able to manage teaching requirements with our present faculty strength, sometimes with additional faculty recruited on a temporary basis. With more faculty, we will be able to divide large courses into smaller divisions and improve the teacher-student contact. And, we would be able to train more PhDs to take care of the faculty shortage in the country," said A K Suresh, dean (faculty), IIT-Bombay. Increasingly, however, the IITs are laying emphasis on inducting doctorate candidates through scrutiny of applications.
Although the undergraduate engineering programmes of the IITs are some of the best ones offered globally, on composite indicator rankings, there is scope for improvement, the IITs added.
The IITs have decided to have a leadership development programme, first for the senior management and then for the younger faculty to help augment leadership qualities. External peer review and accreditation will also be looked at.
"We do all what international institutes do but just that we need to create more visibility for our research and development initiatives and our research programmes," said an IIT director. "We as academicians only believe in doing our work well and have never paid attention to making ourselves more visible. We have realised we need to do that now."
The director is part of a committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to look into the international positioning of the IITs. The committee will submit its report by December-end.
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This September, in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Asian Universities Ranking for 2013, six out of seven older IITs slipped.
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IIT-Bombay led the fall, dropping five notches at 39th position against 34th last year. While IIT-Delhi fell two places to secure the 38th position against 36th last year, IIT-Madras fell four positions to rank at 49 against 45 last year.
IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Kharagpur fell four and two places, respectively, to rank at 51 and 58. While IIT-Roorkee fell one place to rank at 66, IIT -Guwahati held its 89 position as last year. University of Delhi also figures in the list at 78th position, as in 2012. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology topped the Asian rankings followed by a number of Chinese, Japanese and Korean institutions.
The IITs also slipped in the Top 200 university rankings. IIT-Delhi slipped 10 notches to figure at 222, down from 212 last year. US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list with Harvard University securing the second position.
"The stable performance of Indian institutions is a reflection on the country's efforts to internationalise its higher education system. However, it's clear that more efforts are needed in the area if the country's institutions wish to feature more prominently at the top of global rankings," said Ben Sowter, head of research at QS.
Following this lack-lustre show, MHRD decided to constitute a committee of four IIT directors. The annual rankings consider the subject range, research results and academic reputation offered by institutions.
The IIT directors who are part of the committee said the premier engineering institutes need to be more visible at international conferences and publish more in major international journals. International faculty and international students on campus are also a factor that needs to be looked into.
"We need to create infrastructure for foreign faculty and students to be here. This is one aspect which requires a serious thought," an IIT director added.
Moreover, the IITs need to look into their finances to create infrastructure.
The IITs raised their tuition fees to Rs 90,000 a year from this academic year, up from last year's Rs 50,000. Even after the increase, the fees cover just over a fourth of the actual expenditure on students.
The IITs spend Rs 3.4 lakh on a student in a year. "Though we spend more on students than we charge them in terms of fee, we also have a responsibility as public institutions. We cannot expect student fees to take care of the entire expenses - capital plus operating costs," said Devang Khakhar, director, IIT-Bombay.
Where the IITs score well is on the faculty-student ratio, which stands at 1:15.
This is despite the fact that 41 per cent of the teaching posts are vacant in the older IITs. There are only 3,158 regular teaching staff against the sanctioned strength of teaching staff of 5,356.
Vacancy for teaching posts is the highest at IIT-Bhubaneswar (57 per cent), followed by IIT-Delhi (50 per cent), IIT-Kharagpur (48 per cent) and IIT-Guwahati (42 per cent). In the remaining four IITs, the vacant positions range between 19 per cent and 38 per cent.
In the next five years, the IITs hope to overcome the problem of faculty crunch. In addition to this, attracting youngsters to academics and research is a big challenge, the IITs said.
"We are able to manage teaching requirements with our present faculty strength, sometimes with additional faculty recruited on a temporary basis. With more faculty, we will be able to divide large courses into smaller divisions and improve the teacher-student contact. And, we would be able to train more PhDs to take care of the faculty shortage in the country," said A K Suresh, dean (faculty), IIT-Bombay. Increasingly, however, the IITs are laying emphasis on inducting doctorate candidates through scrutiny of applications.
Although the undergraduate engineering programmes of the IITs are some of the best ones offered globally, on composite indicator rankings, there is scope for improvement, the IITs added.
The IITs have decided to have a leadership development programme, first for the senior management and then for the younger faculty to help augment leadership qualities. External peer review and accreditation will also be looked at.