Handful of Indian institutions in top 500 universities

At a time when the government is hoping to make India a hub of education for foreign students, just a handful of Indian higher education institutions have made it to the list of world's top 500 universities.

The rankings were released by two reputed international rating agencies for the year, 2018.

India has the world's largest network of higher education institutions with a total of 903 universities; 39,050 colleges and 10,011 standalone institutions.

In the latest international ranking of the world universities by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), merely nine higher education institutions from India have figured in the list of top 500 universities.

The nine institutions include Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru; seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Delhi University.

Releasing its latest report, the QS has declared IIT-Bombay number one in India compared to other Indian institutions.

While IIT-Bombay was given the 162 rank among the top 500 universities in the world, IISc, placed second in India, got 170 rank and IIT-Delhi received 172 rank.

IIT-Madras grabbed 264th position the QS' list , IIT-Kanpur 283, IIT-Kharagpur 295, IIT-Roorkee 381, IIT-Guwahati 472 and Delhi University 487.

The QS declared that IIT Madras as third best higher education institution in India, IIT-Delhi fourth, IIT Kharagpur fifth, IIT Roorkee ninth and IIT Guwahati tenth.

University of Hyderabad and University of Delhi were placed at seventh and eighth position in India as compared to other Indian higher education institutions assessed by the QS for their quality and standards on various parameters.

The number of Indian higher education institutions figuring in the Times Higher Education world university rankings-2019, released recently, was also very low with just five of the Indian institutions making it to the list of top 500 in the world.

The international rating agency placed IISc in the 251-300 band, IIT-Indore 351-400 band, IIT-Bombay 401-500 band, IIT Roorkee in 401-500 band and JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Mysuru, in the band of 401-500.

The Union government in April rolled out a 'Study in India' programme to increase the number of foreign students, offering them as many as 50,000 seats for admission in various disciplines in the country's 160 higher education institutions which included the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the IITs.

A total of 46,144 students were enrolled to higher education institutions in India in 2017-18 with the highest number of students taking admissions from Nepal (25%) followed by Afghanistan (9.5%).

HRD ministry is hoping to attract at least 2-lakh foreign students to Indian higher education institutions by 2023.