Oxford University - Now slipped to fifth in the list

Harvard University, U.S., has retained its top position in 2009, while Cambridge University, U.K., has moved up from third to second position. Yale University of the U.S. has slipped one position to third in the list dominated by US and UK universities. QS releases it's Top Universities list(TOP 200) . Maintaining the status Quo the list is dominated by US and UK universities.

There is not even a single Indian University in the Top 100 list. The Top Asian university is Tokyo with a rank of 22. The Top University of India is IIT Bombay at 163 and then IIT Delhi at 181. These are the only two Indian Universities to make into top 200. In the top 10 there are six US universities and four UK universities. The first University apart from these two countries is Australian University at 17.

Leading U.K. universities said institutions in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong were “snapping at the heels” of western institutions, arguing they need more funding to compete on the global stage.

However, there has been a significant fall in the number of North American universities in the top 100, from 42 in 2008 to 36 this year.

The top 10 Universities are: Harvard (U.S.), Cambridge (U.K.), Yale(U.S.), UCL, London (U.K.), Imperial College, London and Oxford (both U.K., joint 5), Chicago (U.S.), Princeton (U.S.), MIT, Massachusetts (U.S.) and California Institute of Technology (U.S.).

The rankings are based on an international survey of 9,000 academics who assessed the institutions’ research facility, teaching quality and ability to recruit staff and students abroad.Ofcourse US and Uk universities do well in these issues.  There is a significant debate questioning the relevance of the rankings - as 40% of their score is based on academic peer reviews, 20% of their score is based on research citations, 5% of the score is based on the international students,5% of their score is based on international faculty. So definetly third world/developing countries Universities can't make into the list.

So we should not take the list seriously and feel bad that our Universities are performing poor.Any how it is a fact that Higher Education in India has got a long way to go in India. Mr.Sibal is experimenting various ways, lets hope for the best.