The Hindu : International / India & World : IITs among the world's best

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Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

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International - India & World

IITs among the world's best

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 10. The Indian Institutes of Technology are the only institutions of higher education in south Asia to be included in a list of the world's top 200 universities, led by Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge.

In the first global survey of its kind, the IITs have been placed at 41 — way ahead of many well-known Western universities, including American, British and French. The universities have been ranked on the basis of peer review, the international character of their faculty and students, teacher-student ratio and the impact of their research.

The Times Higher Education Supplement, which hascompiled the list, said the ranking indicators had been chosen to reflect "strength in teaching, research and international reputation" judged by academics themselvesin the form of a peer review. The survey, it said, gave a "snapshot" of the world's leading institutions on the basis of internationally recognised criteria.

While India alone waves the flag for south Asia, there are many countries in south-east Asia, notably China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, which are strongly represented on the list. Predictably,American and European universities dominate the list, with the first four places going to U.S. institutions — pushing Oxford and Cambridge to fifth and sixth places respectively.

The editor of the Supplement, John O'Leary, noted that the survey demonstrated that despite American domination there were "highly regarded" universities in many parts of the world. The survey was prompted by the need for an international league table of the best universities. "Higher education has become so international that it is no longer enough for the leading universities to know that they are ahead of the pack in their own country. Students are prepared to look abroad for the best course, even at (the) undergraduate level; firms scour the world to place research contracts; and academics are more mobile than ever," Mr O'Leary noted.

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