Manna alleged that the ranking process by such agencies was based on the paying capabilities of the institutions.
"The standard of teaching, research and job placement are not the criteria for the ranking instead it is based on the paying capabilities of the institutions. An amount of one lakh and fifty thousand dollars needs to be paid to get a good ranking in such lists," he claimed.
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"These global rankings are more of a business rather than based on academic performance of institutions," he said.
Manna said a five-member committee of IIT directors has been constituted, of which he is part of, to look into the issue and understand the methodology of the ranking agencies.
The report by this committee will be submitted to the IIT council, he said.
On IIT-Kanpur ranking at 295 in the 'QS World University Rankings', Manna said the institute was placed on the position based on old information provided on the its website.
"The ranking should have been after a team would have come to IIT-Kanpur and seen how the institute works. There have been so many students of IIT-Kanpur who have achieved so much on the world stage," he said.
The list released on September 10 was dominated with US universities, with MIT grabbing the top slot and Harvard at No 2, pushing Britain's Cambridge University to No 3.
The 11 Indian institutions which featured in the list included IIT Delhi at 222, IIT Bombay at 233, IIT Kanpur at 295, IIT Madras at 313 and IIT Kharagpur at 346.
| QS Quacquarelli Symonds clarifies: |
| While we cannot speak for other rankings compilers, there are no fees involved in participation in, or position within, the QS World University Rankings. Any suggestion to the contrary is entirely unfounded. Under no circumstances do any commercial engagements with QS for other services have any direct influence on the position or inclusion in QS rankings. All QS personnel who work on rankings are contractually prohibited from presenting anything other than the objective findings of the research. |
Also, the QS ranking considers over 2,500 institutions and ranks over 800. It is neither practical nor feasible to execute annual site visits and the data utilised should not demand it. Different numbers may be needed but the same observation can be made about any other ranking.
The fact that information on an institute’s website should be out of date and misleading raises basic questions about the way in which that institution is communicating to the world. This is further compounded by the fact that website data is only ever used as a last resort – our growing teams of data collection staff make every attempt to identify and reach the appropriate personnel at every subject university to invite them to submit up-to-date data directly. Sadly emails often go unanswered and calls are often fruitless. Our team are ready to accept richer data submissions any time.
Finally, it may be worth remembering that there are approximately 20,000 universities in the world, making the QS top 400 the top 2%. India has five institutions (all IITs) in the top 400, this is the same number as Russia, and more than Brazil or South Africa. In a BRICS context only China has more.
One might robustly argue that the IITs are India’s salvation in international competitiveness terms and that whilst improvements may well be required, they represent a central and crucial pillar on which India can build an internationally competitive knowledge economy. Fundamentally, QS wants engagement and increasingly thorough and accurate data and if the feeling is mutual then it’s time to start building bridges.