QS World University Rankings 2024

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in the News?
• About QS World University Rankings
• QS World University Rankings 2024

Why in the News?

2024 edition of the QS World Ranking for the Universities has been released, recently.

About QS World University Rankings

• Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is a London-based global higher education analyst.
• QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings.
• The rankings compare universities in four major areas:
  • Research,
  • Teaching,
  • Employability, and
  • International outlook
• Each of these areas are measured against six performance indicators:
• Academic Reputation (40%):
  • Based on an academic survey, it collates the expert opinions of more than 94,000 experts regarding teaching and research quality.
• Faculty/Student Ratio (20%):
  • The number of academic staff employed relative to the number of students enrolled.
• Citations per faculty (20%):
  • The total number of citations received by all papers produced by an institution across a five-year period by the number of faculty members at that institution.
• Employer Reputation (10%):
  • Based on an employer survey, which collates 45,000 responses from employers about which institutions they source the most competent, innovative, effective graduates from.
• International faculty/student ratio (5% each):
  • A measure of an institution’s success in attracting faculty and students from overseas.

QS World University Rankings 2024

• The 2024 QS World University Rankings by Subject provide independent comparative analysis on the performance of more than 16,400 individual university programmes.
• The rankings are amongst more than 1,500 universities in 95 countries and territories, across 56 academic disciplines and five broad faculty areas (Arts and Humanities, Engineering and Technology, Life Sciences, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences).

• A total of 69 Indian universities have made it to the QS World University Rankings by Subject with 424 entries, a 19.4 per cent rise from the previous year's 355.
• India's highest-ranked university is JNU for development studies (20th globally, a new entry in this discipline).
  • The second position has been given to IIM-Ahmedabad (22nd globally) for business and management studies.
  • Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (deemed to be university) secured the 24th spot globally in dentistry.
• In Asia, India is second on list of universities featured (69), behind China (101) and is fourth on ranked subject entries after China, Japan and South Korea.
• The most represented Indian universities are DU (30 entries), IIT-Bombay (28) and IIT-Kharagpur (27).
• From Research Perspective:
  • India is now the world's fourth-largest producer of research, generating 1.3 million academic papers in 2023-24. It is only behind China (4.5m), US (4.4m), and UK (1.4m).
  • Additionally, there has been 16 per cent growth in the international research network indicator, which measures volume and diversity of research partnerships.
  • However, there was a slight decrease of 5 per cent in the index, which assesses the balance between research productivity and its impact.
• Overall Observation:
  • India stands as one of the world's most rapidly expanding research centres.
  • From 2017 to 2022, its research output surged by an impressive 54%.
  • This increase not only more than doubles the global average but also significantly exceeds the output of its more traditionally recognised Western peers.
  • Given its current trajectory, India is on the brink of overtaking the United Kingdom in research productivity.
  • However, in terms of research impact, measured by citation count, India ranks ninth globally for the 2017-2022 period.
  • While it is an impressive result, prioritising high-quality, impactful research and its dissemination within the academic community is the essential next step.

Q1. What is the purpose of AICTE?

As per the National Policy of Education (1986), All India Council for Technical Education was established with the following objectives: To plan, formulate and maintain the norms and standards by acting as a statutory authority. To provide quality assurance through accreditation.

Q2. What is the mandate of the UGC?

The UGC`s mandate includes:

Determining and maintaining standards of teaching, examination and research in universities. Framing regulations on minimum standards of education. Monitoring developments in the field of collegiate and university education; disbursing grants to the universities and colleges.