education

Updated: Feb 07, 2018 18:03 IST

Although no Indian institution figured among the top 25 universities in Asia, the country managed to increase its representation in the list of 350 Asian varsities released by Times Higher Education (THE) on Tuesday.

India claimed 42 places, up from 33 last year, with 12 new entrants.

The top-most Indian centre of higher learning was the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, at the 29th place. Two newcomers from the country — the Indian School of Mines at the 141st position and the Banaras Hindu University at a joint 194th – made it to the top 200.

However, both IISc and the Indian Institute to Technology-Bombay dropped two places each to the 29th and 44th position respectively as compared to last year. This was largely attributed to a slump in their citation impact scores.

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras saw the biggest decline in the top 200 — dropping 41 places to 103rd — due to the same reason, said THE. Despite this, Indian universities achieved a higher average score this year with an overall improvement in citation performance. It also picked up points in other areas such as research productivity, even though it lagged behind on research environment. Its only area of decline was teaching reputation.

The main trend of this year’s Asia University Rankings was the continued rise of China, which now claims almost one in five places in rankings. Many of its institutions have made strong gains, especially Tsinghua University, which is now the country’s top-ranking institution for the first time in the table’s six-year history.

The National University of Singapore holds on to the overall number one spot after improving its scores in almost all areas. While India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey have all increased their representation, many of their universities have fallen in the list.

“It is a fantastic achievement that India now has 42 universities in the Asia rankings. The country has improved on 12 of the 13 metrics underlying the rankings,” said Phil Baty, editorial director of global rankings at THE. “While it has not experienced the same rapid improvement as East Asian nations such as China, and while some of its institutions faced decline, India’s overall rise proves that it can make advances year on year.”

Baty said though the South Asian region has increased its representation in the 2018 THE Asia University Rankings, it is struggling to maintain its standing in the face of “competition from East and Southeast Asia”.

India remains South Asia’s leading higher education country, with 42 representatives. Pakistan’s performance was mixed. The country has 10 representatives (up from seven last year), but while two of its leading universities have made gains, others have fallen.