Indians have come up with high quality research in universities in other parts of the world, however, they have not shown such research in Indian universities, Vice-Chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Council for Higher Education P. Narasimha Rao said.
Addressing the inaugural of the day-long workshop on ‘Navigating eduKPI – a case driven approach’ organised by the Andhra University in association with the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) here on Saturday, he pointed out that the citation index of Indian researchers abroad was very high compared to the Indian researchers in Indian universities. The question was on how to make the Indian universities compete with the universities across the world.
There has to be a universally recognised benchmark for evaluating the status of higher education in India, he said emphasising the need for ranking of Indian universities.
Social obligation
While ranking brings in transparency, however, it should not become the basis for policy or financial support, he said emphasising the social obligation of the exchequer funded Indian universities.
Indian students going abroad select universities based on their ranking, similarly Indian universities should submit themselves to ranking to ensure that they are selected by foreign students wanting to study in India, in-charge Vice-Chancellor E.A. Narayana said.
The entire team of faculty and administration of the Andhra University worked hard and submitted the information required for global ranking resulting in the university getting a high ranking among all Indian universities, he said.
A core team of 16 senior faculty members and officials was formed for submitting the data and they would be uploading the information this year too before March 31.
The major difference in global ranking system was that each faculty member had to upload individual performance details apart from the department-wise data and university information. The ranking is based on the data on the entire university, Andhra University Registrar V. Uma Maheswara Rao explained.
The workshop was being organised to help the other universities in the State understand and participate in the global ranking, he added.
Research accounts for over 50 per cent marks in global rankings and that is where the Elsevier Scopus helped the AU last year in participating in the global ranking, Vijay Reddy of Elsevier explained.
Infrastructure grant
AU is leading in research among the universities in the State and the SVU has a strong base but is yet to document it, Joint Secretary APSCHE S Srikanta Natha Reddy said. The university was sanctioned an infrastructure grant from RUSA this year, he added. Convenor of the workshop U. Shameem and co-convenor V. Valli Kumari, principals of AU colleges and senior faculty from different universities in the State participated.
