Cover Story

Parameters of Excellence: India's Top 10 non-IIT engineering colleges

To provide readers, especially aspiring engineers, a comprehensive profile of India’s most highly respected ‘other’ (excluding IITs) engineering colleges, the Top 100 national and state league tables are supplemented with Top 10 national rankings on the basis of parameters of excellence.

To compile the national and state rankings, C fore field researchers interviewed 1,036 faculty and 1,220 final year students countrywide, asking them to rate engineering colleges on seven parameters, viz. competence of faculty, faculty welfare and development, research and innovation, pedagogic systems and processes, industry interface, placements record, and infrastructure and facilities. Further, the informed interviewees were also asked to assign weightage to each parameter. The scores awarded by respondents under each parameter were totaled for the purpose of final ratings and ranking.

Unsurprisingly, the ‘competence of faculty’ parameter was assigned highest weightage (350) indicating that the respondents believe that ability to attract and retain faculty — dependent upon the faculty welfare and development systems  — is the most important criterion for assessing the teaching-learning and research capability of engineering (and other) education institutions. Parameter rankings which highlight the prime strengths of highly ranked institutions are useful because they enable students to select institutions whose priorities dovetail with their own.

The national rankings of Top 10 colleges under all seven parameters enumerated above, are set out below.