TeaThat year 2022 could be the key to the future of education around the world. Covid brought life to a halt, including education in physical classes, on the premises of schools and colleges. Instead students took their places in front of their computer screens, as teachers struggled to recreate the feeling of an online classroom and to keep students engaged, while educational institutions adapt teaching and exam methods to virtual mode. fell. The pandemic has wreaked havoc in the education sector.
This year has seen India and the world make a slow return to a ‘normal’ that may not be as outlined as we remember them. For the time being, schools and colleges have reopened, physical exams are back and students and teachers are interacting in classrooms and not on digital platforms. However, even though things seem the same, they have changed. Digital learning has opened up many dimensions and opportunities in pedagogy. Technology has entered the classroom to help reactivate classical methods of teaching and help teachers and students strive for better learning outcomes.
While necessity is the mother of that reform, a long-pending change in the college admissions process came in the form of a well-thought-out decision this May. This July, colleges under 89 universities, including all central universities, will admit students to their undergraduate and postgraduate courses on the basis of their performance in CUET, a common university entrance test. This test, which is conducted by the National Testing Agency, is expected to assess the conceptual learning of the students and their ability to think logically. Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, University Grants Commission says, “Without good knowledge and understanding of what is taught in schools – without memorized answers, a student cannot expect to do well in CUET. “
This means that the unrealistic cut-offs for admission to colleges, especially Delhi University, will be a thing of the past. With different marking patterns on different boards, children from state boards often perform poorly as compared to their counterparts in other boards. CUET will provide an equal opportunity. Students across India, irrespective of their performance in the 10+2 board examination, may aspire to get admission in their desired course in reputed colleges. In this changed scenario, the 26th India Today Best Colleges Survey conducted by the reputed market research agency Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA) assumes even more significance.
Graphics by Tanmay Chakraborty
For more than two decades, this survey has been recognized as the final word in evaluating the nation’s colleges. Every year, it provides the most accurate and detailed information on the performance of various colleges in five parameters- ‘Intake Quality and Governance’, ‘Academic Excellence’, ‘Infrastructure and Living Experience’, ‘Personality and Leadership Development’ and ‘Career Progress’. Is. and placement’. With transparent scoring in each parameter, it allows students to make a comparative assessment of the colleges they wish to join. In the CUET application, students have to indicate their preferred course and college. We hope the India Today Best Colleges survey results help them make a more informed decision.
The survey is also useful because it takes into account not only legacy winners but also relatively new colleges that show incremental improvement in their performance. Academics acknowledge that this process has encouraged the spread of quality higher education in many places, beyond the small agglomeration of metropolitan cities. The survey identifies the top three colleges in major Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, making the ranking of higher education institutions more inclusive.
Education is a serious investment in India. Every parent and student wants to know the employability and remunerative potential of a degree in a particular course. This survey carefully provides details of colleges offering the best return on investment, campus placements with the highest salaries and also the lowest fees. Coming from a reliable and verified source, such information can help parents and students make important decisions.
And that is the ultimate goal and achievement of the India Today Best Colleges Survey – to serve as a credible almanac on the state of college education in India. It is a responsibility the Survey has fulfilled over the past two decades, documenting every change and development in the nation’s college landscape, and heralding the arrival of every new star on the horizon.
modus operandi
How Colleges Are Ranked
With over 42,000 institutions of higher education in India, this 26th edition of India Today Group’s annual ranking of colleges aims to make it easier for candidates to make important career decisions based on a rich information base and data. Over the years, this ranking has become the gold standard for stakeholders such as employers, parents, alumni, policy makers, the general public and institutions. Since 2018 this survey is being conducted in collaboration with the reputed Delhi based market research agency Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA). The work on the ground was carried out between January and June this year. The colleges were ranked in 14 streams- Arts, Science, Commerce, Medicine, Dental Science, Engineering, Architecture, Law, Mass Communication, Hotel Management, BBA, BCA, Social Work and Fashion Design.
To arrive at an objective ranking, MDRA carefully looked at over 112 performance indicators in each stream to enable a comprehensive and balanced comparison of colleges. These indicators were placed under five broad parameters: ‘Intake Quality and Governance’, ‘Academic Excellence’, ‘Infrastructure and Living Experience’, ‘Personality and Leadership Development’ and ‘Career Progress and Placement’. Along with this, an attempt was also made to find out how colleges are prepared to deal with the epidemic.
In order to give more realistic, relevant and accurate information, MDRA evaluates the colleges on the basis of current year data. The tables also give parameter-wise scores for in-depth insights on key aspects of decision making by various stakeholders.
The ranking was done in several stages…
- An extensive desk review of MDRA’s database and secondary research was conducted to prepare the list of colleges in each stream. Only those colleges were considered which offer full time, classroom courses and have at least three batches passed by 2021. Undergraduate courses were ranked in 12 streams, while postgraduate courses were assessed for mass communication and social work.
- Experts with rich experience in their fields were consulted to prepare parameters and sub-parameters for various fields. The key indicators for establishing the best colleges were carefully determined and the relative weights finalised. For a fair comparison on a year-on-year basis, the weighting of the parameters remained unchanged for the last two years.
- Keeping these performance indicators in mind, comprehensive objective questionnaires for each of the 14 streams were prepared and placed in the public domain on the websites of India Today and MDRA. MDRA directly approached about 10,000 colleges meeting the eligibility criteria, demanding objective data for verification. Attested hard and soft copies were sought and 1,614-55 more college- eligible institutions submitted institutional data along with supporting documents extensively within the stipulated time frame as compared to last year.
- On receipt of objective data from the participating colleges, MDRA verified the information. In case of insufficient/wrong data the respective colleges were asked to provide complete, correct and updated information.
- The conceptual survey of these colleges was conducted among 1,781 well informed respondents (544 senior faculty members, 306 recruits/professionals, 382 career accelerators and 549 final year students) across 27 cities divided into four regions.
Answer: Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Lucknow, Kota, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Roorkee
East: Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Patna and Raipur
west: Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Indore, Panaji and Nagpur
south: Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Coimbatore
- National and zonal rankings were taken from them in their area of experience and they were given 75 percent and 25 percent weightage respectively. Institutions were also rated on a 10-point rating scale on each of five parameters.
- When calculating the objective score, the aggregate data alone was not used; Data were normalized on the basis of number of students for fair comparison. The total marks obtained from the Objective and Perception survey were combined in the ratio of 60:40 – for 11 vocational courses – while the ratio of 50:50 for academic courses – Arts, Science and Commerce – was taken to get the final combined score went.
- A large team of researchers, statisticians and analysts worked on this project. The MDRA core team, led by Executive Director Abhishek Agarwal, included Project Director Abneesh Jha, Assistant Research Manager Vaibhav Gupta, Research Executive Aditya Srivastava and Executive EDP Manveer Singh.
