Panjab varsity finds itself at 49th position in QS India rankings

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 16

In the first ever QS India University Rankings, Panjab University (PU) has been placed at 49th position. IIT Bombay is at the top position, followed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru and IIT Madras.

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which is a British company, ranks institutions across the world every year. Earlier, its rankings used to be released in partnership with the Times Higher Education (TIE), but they parted ways after 2009.

The PU has failed to feature among the top universities of the QS World Rankings-2019, released in June this year. Though in total, the number of universities in the top 1,000 increased from 20 to 24, the PU, which was in the bracket of 801-1,000 in the QS World University Rankings-2018, was nowhere in the 2019 rankings.

Institutions in the region

IIT Ropar is at the 21st rank and has emerged as the top institute in the region. It is followed by Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, at 31st rank. After PU at 49th rank, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, is in the category of 51-55 ranks. Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar, is in the category of 61-65 ranks.

Prof Raj Kumar, VC, PU, has expressed satisfaction that despite various challenges, the university has been able to get its position in the QS rankings and congratulated the students, research scholars, teachers and staff.

Methodology

There are eight indicators. The academic reputation has 30 per cent weightage, which is based on the global survey of academics, who are asked to identify the top-performing universities in their own field of expertise.

The employer reputation has 20 per cent weightage, which is based on the survey of graduate employers, who are asked to identify the universities producing best graduates.

The faculty student ratio has 20 per cent weightage, while staff with PhD has 10 per cent marks.

Where PU lacks

The PU has an overall score of 30.1. It has got 38.1 in academic reputation and 27.5 in employer reputation. It has just 5.8 in faculty-student ratio as there is a huge shortage of teachers and 5.1 in international students’ parameter. On the faculty-student ratio, the PU ranks fourth last among 57 universities ranked on this parameter.

Also, it has got nil in international faculty. It has 39.2 points in papers per faculty, but as it has big strength of faculty without PhD, the varsity has got only 42.7 in faculty with PhD parameter.

The only parameter where it has scored is citations per paper as it has got 66.4. It has ranks 33rd in the country on this parameter. The Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, is at the top, followed by Shivaji University at Kohlapur and IIT Ropar. The GNDU is at the 8th rank on this parameter.

Analysis of IQAC

• Prof Rajivlochan, Director, IQAC, said: “We are poor in quality of faculty. The per capita output of the faculty in terms of the research papers is going down. We are short of faculty, so teachers working in departments are overburdened. We need to recruit more teachers.” 
• “As far as the academic reputation is concerned, we have improved a lot. It is because of the consistent efforts of the PU leadership. We have signed a number of MoUs. We have improved on the employer’s reputation parameter as earlier they used to ignore us. We do not have funds so we could do a little about the student-faculty ratio,” he said.