Read the global university rankings in toto: India is walking forward while others are sprinting
Sometimes, in India, we celebrate without much sense of proportion. Cheering an IIT for getting ranked 118 in the QS World University Rankings 2027, and some other Indian universities also moving up, definitely has frog-in-the-well feel. It’s like saying chalo pass ho gaya, for a middling exam performance in the most cut-throat jobs era in history. For the individual child, this, we agree, is 100% the right attitude. Gently encouraging, not putting too much pressure. But national higher education warrants a completely different kind of accountability. Tough, analytical, benchmarked to the best. And there, what’s unmissable is that University of Hong Kong is ranked 11, and Peking University 13.
Big picture’s the same across different rankings. Yes, India’s representation’s rising. But China’s universities have pushed into the global elite. Indeed, Western unis are growing worried about how they’re becoming less attractive to Chinese students, and the billions they bring. Nor is China the only uncomfortable comparison. Per QS data released in March, tiny Singapore has TWO universities in the top 10 for engineering and tech.
University rankings serve as a rough proxy for a country’s ability to generate new knowledge. China’s share in Nature Index, which tracks high-quality academic journals, is now more than US’s, and 21 times India’s. If we consider the AI research landscape in particular, yes, India’s contributions have risen substantially. But China’s have made a dramatic ascent, expanding in global share from under 5% in 2000 to a completely dominant 36% by 2025. Chinese universities have leapfrogged on the back of governance structures that enable liberal international hires, quick research initiative launches, building capacities at speed. Simultaneously, its private sector’s created enormous demand for advanced research, pulling unis into a virtuous cycle of innovation and investment. Sure, India’s also made progress. But people don’t usually catch up with the competition by congratulating themselves. They do it by becoming more ambitious, more demanding, more willing to learn from those who have raced ahead. Working harder, smarter.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
