No Indian university makes it to world’s top 200?

PTI

London, 07 October 2011: Not a single Indian university - not even the celebrated IITs and IIMs - figure in the latest ranking of the world’s top 200 universities, with American varsities dominating the list. US institutions have grabbed seven spots in the top 10 despite President Barack Obama warning American students of stiff competition from pupils in India and China.

 

Three British universities, Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, continue to make the cut with a university in China also making the grade. The world rankings, produced by the Times Higher Education magazine, places 75 US universities in the top 200. UK has 32 universities in the list, followed by Germany (12), the Netherlands (12) and Canada (9).

 

The list of top 200 includes universities in Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore, South Africa and China, but this year repeats earlier trends about India ? no Indian university is deemed good enough to be included in the elite list, inspite of India claiming to have substantially increased its spending on higher education in recent years.

 

 

The top 10 in the list of 200 universities are: California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, Princeton University, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Britain’s Universities Minister David Willetts said the list showed that relative to its size, the UK’s university system was the "world’s best-performing". California Institute of Technology, better known as Caltech, is a relatively small institution, with about 2,000 mostly graduate students and almost 500 staff.

 

"With as many as seven million students predicted to be studying outside their home country within the next few years, and with international research collaboration at the top of government agendas, these world university rankings are more important than ever," said Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education.

 

Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 Group of UK universities, highlighted funding worries. He said: "UK universities are facing budget cuts, despite the new fee regime. The sweeping reductions to capital grants will make it harder to invest in the facilities that make our universities world leaders."

 

Oxford vice-chancellor Andrew Hamilton has also warned that a lack of funding meant that the UK’s universities would struggle to compete for the best research students in the "global market for talent."