The Best In India Today

Rankings create an atmosphere of competition. They help compare institutions comprehensively. Quite a few educational institutional ranking agencies exist worldwide, which curate a range of lists. The purpose of these lists is to guide students, parents and governments to make informed choices. The BW Businessworld rankings strive to be different.

The list you will see in the ensuing pages have been curated factoring in Indian conditions and requirements. India is a nation with a vast and diverse geography, where the teaching and learning process is not uniform. Policy advancements, however, work in favour of the students and faculties. We take into account the varying challenges that different states face in the country.

We attempt to make engineering rankings easier by designing a comprehensive assessment framework to provide high quality, ethical and independent comparison of the quality of engineering and technology schools across the country. The rankings are not simply based on metrices. Multiple interactions were organised with leading researchers and employers to make the engineering rankings quick and easy. The outcome is the third edition of India’s Top Engineering Institutions in association with BW Education

The university system was established in India in 1857 with three British creations, the University of Madras, the University of Calcutta and the University of Bombay. Universities in India are broadly categorised as Institutions of National Importance, Central, State, State Private, and Deemed to Be Universities apart from the usual classifications as Public and Private institutions. Colleges are segregated as Public, Private, Government Aided, Affiliated, etc. The engineering institutions are a class apart from other institutions, even if they have comparative attributes, primarily because they are essentially focussed on the applied sciences.

How we did it
The BW Engineering ranking list was a compilation of engineering schools in order of percentiles. The methodology used was based on the performance of the institutions in specific areas such as research, teaching, internationalisation and employability. The ranking strives to display the strengths of the institutions and also how they compare with one another on a variety of metrices that reflect these strengths and weaknesses in each specific area.

The unprecedented situation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic was factored in, in curating a framework for these rankings. BW Businessworld curated and designed a comprehensive assessment framework to provide a high quality, ethical, independent assessment of the quality of engineering and technology schools across the country. The framework was the outcome of several consultations and interactions with the leading academics, scholars, researchers and employers. The study was based on a set of parameters that apply to higher education in India and is favoured globally.

Several parameters were taken into consideration before the list was released. Each of the colleges was judged on three major criteria – Pillar, Parameter and Indicator – which were then further divided into sections. The category ‘Pillar’, for instance, had sections such as knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and social inclusion.

Parameters such as the college’s track record of excellence in research, innovation, teaching excellence, industry engagement and employability, infrastructure, social media sentiment analysis, inclusiveness and social impact, were also taken into consideration.

The indicators based on which each parameter was judged were: papers per faculty, citations per paper, improvement in research productivity, spin off companies, faculty student ratio, faculty with PhD, average faculty experience, demand ratio, accreditation, international MOU, massive open online courses, perception survey, campus recruitment and higher studies, corporate consulting assignments, industrial research MOU, internships, media and survey, alumni network, incubation centre, library, laboratory equipment and practical education, sports and extra-curricular activities, differently-abled friendly campus, social media sentiment analysis, community development, diversity-national, gender diversity, inclusion of socially under privileged, scholarships and bursaries.

While  the parameters continued to remain constant, the weightage or percentage provided to each of these categories differed, based on the type of ranking done. While research excellence, and industry engagement and employability had the maximum weightage of 20 per cent, parameters such as infrastructure and social media presence had a weightage of 10 per cent.

Looking ahead
The education sector has been metamorphosing in recent years. A host of improvements have been witnessed in the sector that could perhaps, turn India into a knowledge haven. In our quest for the top engineering schools, we spoke to the directors, faculties, employees, and students. We then concluded that institutions that provide more opportunities to their students and assist them to achieve their future objectives qualify as the best institutions today.

Click here to view Overall Ranking Of Engineering Institutions In India

This article was first published in the print issue of (26 July - 08 August 2020) BW Businessworld. Click Here to Subscribe to BW Businessworld magazine.