Seven top IITs boycott THE world university ranking over transparency issue

Seven top Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) including the ones located in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai on April 16 announced that they are boycotting the World University Rankings by British ranking agency Times Higher Education (THE).

Seven top Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) including the ones located in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai on April 16 announced that they are boycotting the World University Rankings by British ranking agency Times Higher Education (THE).

Stating that they doubt the transparency of the 'THE' rankings, the older IITs in a joint statement said, ‘Leading IITs i.e. IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee have decided to not participate in any of the Times Higher Education (THE) - World University Rankings this year.’

The IITs further added that their decision will be reconsidered next year ‘if THE is able to convince them about the parameters and transparency in their ranking process.’

THE publishes rankings of several multi-country including world university ranking, young university ranking and emerging economies university rankings. The IITs started doubting their transparency last year when none of them got a place among the best 300 universities in the world.

While IIT Bombay stated that THE ranked the institute despite not giving any information, IIT Delhi called such ranking a black box.

In 2019, IIT Delhi director stated, ‘In my humble opinion, institutions become great by positively impacting the ecosystem around it by imparting the highest quality education and training to the students who go through its portals. If Delhi NCR has the highest number of tech startups/Unicorns in India, IIT Delhi has played a role in it. If 14 of the 24 Unicorns created by Indians are by the alumni of one single institution-- IIT Delhi, (then) IIT Delhi is surely doing something right.’

The doubt among the top Indian technology schools also stems from the fact that another World University Ranking by another global agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) placed three Indian institutions within top 200, six Indian institutions got ranked among top 300 and nine managed to get a place among top 500 best universities in the world. However, the sight was different in THE World University Ranking last year. THE places universities in bands after top 200 individual ranks. In the 2019 ranking list, IIT-Bombay and IIT Delhi got placed in the top 401 to 500 band which was much below the second generation IIT Ropar that was placed in the 301-350 band along with IISc Bangalore. After the top 200 individual ranks, THE places universities in bands.

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