The Times Higher Education World University Ranking is widely trusted by academics, industry and governments all over the world. In its list of top 400 universities for the year 2012-13, IIT Kharagpur stands at 226-250, IIT Bombay at 251-275, King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Jeddah, at 301-350 and IIT Roorkee at 351-400. The University of Tokyo, Japan, has 27th rank in world ranking and the first position in Asian ranking.
I am happy to see King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, securing the top position in the Gulf and getting 49th rank in Asian university ranking. IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay and Roorkee are at 30th, 33rd, and 56th rank respectively in Asian category.
Many prestigious universities of India could not make it to list apparently because the criterion for ranking included international outlook and citations as benchmarks apart from teaching, industry income and research. In international outlook, taking into account collaborations with international colleagues in research and publication, enrollments of foreign students and staff, the three IITs scored less than 20 points out of 100. In citations; the role a university plays in spreading knowledge and new ideas, measured by the number of times a university published work is cited globally, their score was around 45.
It goes without saying that we have to excel in teaching and research if we want more of our institutions to appear on such a list. We need to reach out to the international institutions for collaboration and knowledge transfer. Institutional quality is also measured by institution’s ability to help in innovations, inventions and consultancy in modern-day academia.
We know very well that we have potential and established institutions that have done significant research, but today’s market is governed by numbers and we have to manage ours. Just being content with our quality education alone does not serve the interest of our students in the best way when they venture out for future in the global village. Definitely these rankings matter there.
Saudi Arabia definitely is doing a great job in its education sector and this effort has to be appreciated by all. — Mubin Raza Khan, Jeddah
Top honor for KAU
