For the first time in the annals of history, the Indian Institute of Science has done the nation proud by breaking into the top 10 rankings of global universities. Times Higher Education was the first to put out the information on Tuesday when they broke that the Indian Institution has in fact proven to be one of the best universities in the world. The country houses one of the most revered small universities in the world, as the 2017 edition of THE World Rankings put forward. The Indian Institute of Science (or IISc) in Bangalore was ranked in eighth place by the THE’s Best Small Universities in the World 2017. A small university is defined as one having a total number of students less than 5,000.
However the show overall by India in the rankings has definitely taken a hit this year. This has been seen clearly by the fact that this year apart from IISc there are no other universities in the top 20, however this was not the case last year when there were two Indian Universities in the top 20. However, last year there were no Indian Universities who were in the top 10.
The Indian Institute of science is a government funded public university which focusses primarily on scientific research. The University, established in 1909, supported by eminent individuals such as Jamsetji Tata and the then Maharaja of Mysore Sir Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, also has a key focus on specialized higher education in the fields of pure science, applied science, engineering, management among other varied disciplines. This University, having a rich heritage of research, had become the first Institute from India to be ranked among the top universities in the world by THE in 2015-16. IISc had secured the 99th position that year.
Among the Elite
Joining the ranks of such elite and legendary institutions of education and research such as The California Institute of Technology (CalTech), The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), King’s College, Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University among several others who are all revered across the world, IISc has truly shown that even Indian Institutions can reach levels of international excellence and match even the biggest and most funded universities in the world in terms of research quality and real world outcomes.
The leadership position on the list is retained by CalTech as it has been for several years now. Despite this amazing achievement, the nation has two negative points to keep it down. The two universities which were at the positions of 18 and 14, which are the Savitribai Phule Pune University and the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwhati respectively, were unable to keep their spots from the previous year this year on. This is definitely something that is a little disappointing.
The main thing that The World Rankings try to focus on and highlight are that which of these small universities try to provide the highest student satisfaction metrics as well as good positive understanding between professors and their students. The smaller class sizes that many of these universities offer as well as the lower student to teacher ratios are definitely attractive to students.