Its British education legacy is working well for the semi-autonomous Chinese dependency of Hong Kong (pop.7 million) which merged with the communist Republic of China in 1997 after a century of rule by Westminster. The University of Hong Kong (estb. 1911) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (1991) are ranked first and second in the latest QS Asian University Rankings of the London-based global academic research firm Quacquarelli Symond (QS) whose annual ranking of the world’s top 200 universities is widely accepted as authoritative in academic circles worldwide. The QS Asian Universities Rankings 2010 which rate and rank 200 universities in 11 Asian countries on the parameters of academic peer review, recruiter review, and citations per paper among other criteria, were released to the media on May 14.
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With the National University of Singapore ranked third, the Top 10 Asian universities list is dominated by Hong Kong’s revamped and internationalised universities and five Japanese varsities which have received heavy government investment under Tokyo’s new Global 30 universities programme. On the other hand despite being highly rated under the parameters of academic reputation and employer satisfaction, China’s highest ranked institutions were University of Peking (12) and Tsinghua (16), way below their Hong Kong counterparts.
Nevertheless, the academic reputation of China’s hitherto isolationist universities is much better than the very best of India’s 450 universities and 23,000 colleges. Of them the highest ranked is IIT-Bombay (ranked 36) followed by IIT-Kanpur (37), IIT-Delhi (39), IIT-Madras (53) and Delhi University (67). Significantly the rankings of all these institutions have slipped several notches compared to 2009.
However most disappointingly, India’s oldest universities of Bombay (aka Mumbai), Calcutta and Madras (founded in 1857) have not established good reputations despite their ancient vintage. The highest ranked among them is Mumbai (96) followed by Calcutta (99) with Pune University ranked 109. The only consolation of the 2010 QS Asian Universities Rankings for Indian academia is that IIT-Kharagpur (57), IIT-Guwahati (66) and the universities of Mumbai and Calcutta are ranked higher in 2010 than they were last year. A sad commentary on government mismanagement of tertiary education in post-independence India.