 "IIT-Kharagpur")
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) has released the first edition of a new ranking based on graduate employability, in which IIT Kharagpur (IIT-KGP) has emerged as the only Indian institute in the top 100. Others such as IIT Madras, Delhi and Bombay have been ranked in the 101-150 band in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2017, followed by IIT Kanpur and the University of Delhi in the over-201 band.
The new ranking, which features 300 top universities globally, is designed to improve the quality of analyses about the links between university practices and graduate employability.
Globally, the index has seen Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) bag first and second places, respectively, followed by China's Tsinghua University.
According to QS, universities with a strong STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — focus, particularly those emphasising technology, have been ranked highly.
The methodology for the rankings differs from that found in the global rankings, using different indicators and changing the weighting of the existing indicators which it retains. The rankings' first edition is based on five criteria including employer reputation with a weightage of 30 per cent, partnerships with employers (25 per cent), alumni outcomes (20 per cent), employers' presence on campus (15 per cent) and graduate employment rate (10 per cent).
Among the criteria, IIT Madras has scored 96.6/100 for graduate employment rate, making it India's highest-scoring university for this indicator, and the fourth-highest scoring university in the world for this metric. On the other hand, University of Delhi scored 98.6/100 for alumni outcomes, thereby being ranked at 13th position globally for this indicator.
Commenting on the rankings, Ben Sowter, Head of Research at QS said, as the global employment market changes in unprecedented ways, students are increasingly emphasising the link between their university choice and their future career. We are confident that the insights provided by this ranking will prove invaluable in allowing them to do so.
The ranking represents an improvement over last year's pilot, with an enhanced methodology and an additional 100 universities.
Globally, the top 20 has 10 institutions from the United States, three each from the United Kingdom and China, two from Australia and one each from France and Hong Kong.
