MUMBAI: Several Indian universities have made it to the world’s top places to pursue popular subjects, especially in the
STEM fields
. A total of 44 programmes — last year it was 35 — from various campuses made it to the global top 100, according to the
QS World University Rankings
by Subject 2023 released on Wednesday.
The 13th edition of
rankings by subject
showed that Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi entered the premier global league of the top 50 for electrical and electronic engineering — 49th rank, up seven places).
Similarly, for Math, while IIT-Bombay is ranked 92th, up 25 spots; IIT-Madras is ranked 98th, up 50 spots. The electrical and electronic engineering programme at
IIT-Kanpur
now ranks 87th in the world, and computer science & information systems 96th. And IIT-Kharagpur is among the world’s top computer science and information systems (94th rank, up 15 spots). In the case of universities, Jawaharlal Nehru University (68th rank) and University of Delhi (91th rank) broke into the world’s top 100 in sociology.
Ben Sowter, QS Research director, said: “One of the biggest challenges faced by India is educational – providing high-quality tertiary education in the face of exploding demand: this much was recognised by 2020’s NEP, which set the ambitious target of a 50% gross enrolment ratio by 2035.” “It should therefore provide some reassurance that the number of Indian programs featuring across our 54 subject rankings and five broad faculty areas has increased this year – from 299 to 355 this year,” he added.
“Considering only countries with more than 10 universities ranked in our ranking, India is the second-most improved in Asia. Its overall performance improved by 17.2% year on year, after Mainland China, which improved by 21.9%,” said Sowter. The 2023 QS World
University rankings
by subject sees Indian higher education institutions featuring in 38 of the 54 narrow subjects and in the all the five broad subject areas – engineering and technology, humanities, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, social sciences and management
Globally, US institutions lead in 32 subjects. Harvard University is the strongest-performing institution, ranking first in 14 subjects, two more than last year. British universities top 15 subject tables, with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge leading in four and two subjects, respectively.
The current edition ranked 66 Indian universities, cumulatively achieving 355 entries of various programmes: an 18.7% increase compared to last year (299). The 11 declared Institutes of Eminence take 44% of the overall Indian entries (158). The most represented Indian universities in this edition of the rankings are University of Delhi (27 entries), IIT-B (25 entries) and IIT-Kharagpur (23 entries).
According to QS, India’s highest-ranked programme is dentistry at Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences for Dentistry (ranked 13th globally, up five places). The next two highest ranked are Petroleum Engineering (21th globally, up nine spots) at IIT-Madras and Indian School of Mines University, Dhanbad, placing 25th (up one place) in engineering–mineral & mining.
