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Friday, June 19, 2009

Race for the Top Spot

There could be many good things but the best can be only one. With most of the Engineering entrance results out and a few more to follow, it's busy time for the future Engineers and more importantly to the parents. The present decade has seen a very rapid growth in the total number of engineering colleges as well as the quality of education in the country. The growing number of colleges has increased the competition between various colleges and all are trying to put up a very healthy show in terms of infrastructure development, personality development, an increase in the type of courses, etc. A number of private colleges now have better facilities than many good government colleges. Though many private firms have started colleges with a pure business mindset, whatsoever have succeeded both in creating good leaders as well as helping themselves monetarily.


But off-late we have seen some of the well established private colleges making use of various forms of media to claim themselves to be the best amongst the lot. It's been almost half a decade that VIT, Vellore has claimed itself to be the best private engineering college in India. And I have seen it ranked sometimes even above a couple of IITs. Not that it can't be better than an IIT at any point of time, but having personally seen IIT and VIT and with friends in either of the colleges and being from a college that's in the same league as VIT, I can say it definitely is not upto the mark of any IIT in any aspect. Be it the education imparted, research programmes, faculty, infrastructure etc. Its no matter of surprise that students studying in this college itself wonder how could it be given such a high ranking. From the past couple of months another good college, SRM University has claimed itself to be the best private college in the country, thanks to another survey report. And I have seen advertisements which showed Amity University to be the best private college too!

I feel that the nation needs a standard survey. We can follow the standard set by 'USNews Survey Report' which very aptly ranks the best US colleges every year for various streams taking into account numerous factors like infrastructure, faculty, placements etc. There are many survey reports even in the US, but there's only one that most of the people have been refering for nearly 2 decades now as it's results have been nearly perfect and have even been supported by the Government. As a simple fact, one need not advertise if he/she knows they are the best. The country's best private colleges like BITS, PSG Tech never claim themselves to be the best. It's the students who come out of the college that decide its position and we know where these colleges stand overall. False claims have unnecessarily confused many students and parents to choose which one's the best. It's better the colleges stop this race and focus on building leaders. On a final account, VIT is good, but not good enough to beat IITs, SRM can be ranked high, but not high enough to take the top spot and I have no clue about Amity. Have a look at the weird ranking system at these links,

http://www.squamble.com/2009/04/23/top-35-private-engineering-colleges-in-india/
http://www.srmuniv.ac.in/srm_ranked.php?page=congratulation_messages




7 comments:

Unknown said...

The best college! The tag is not determined by the scale of the college! Considering the IIT's, the research is phenomenal. It is comparable to the universities outside India. When you look at other colleges and the scale of research, IIT's beat them by a huge margin. It's time self proclaimed Best Universities reflect upon themselves

PostMan said...

@chaitanya
Yeah...IITs beat any other college in India hands down. The post deals with private colleges in the country that claim to be on par with the IITs like VIT and SRM. I think BITS-Pilani is the only private firm that can be found on the same league as the IITs.

strings.raj said...

I agree with the fact of the matter that discussed here. Students do play a major role in making these institutions better and better... But as you said, i think there should be a singular survey similar to what US News does. It would be helpful to vast number of aspiring individuals

pawan said...

True!
The media system is corrupt in India. Whoever pays the big bucks, their college will be adjudged as the best. I was confused myself while planning to join in an engineering college. But many of the private institutions in India are money minded and the facilities provided, as you said, are no where to be compared with an IIT!
Nice post!
Cheers!

PostMan said...

@pawan
Thanks dude....I agree that most of the private colleges are money-minded. However I wouldn't generalize and say that the media system is corrupt. There are many issues that requires the roll of the media. I would put it as "media system regarding the ranking system is not perfect and yes,money makes a difference"...I guess probably you meant the same...:)

Chan said...

I do not agree fully to what Krishna Teja has voiced.. there is certainly an increase in the qunatity of the number of colleges but cannot be satisfied on 'Quality' based on absolute scale (comparing to previous decade). Even if a survey is done by an Indian group, it certainly will be a biased one for the reasons we know. All these collges claiming themselves as great in various aspects do not revelotionalise in one aspect pper decade atleast. They may introduce 'n' new departments, but to the trend a very high percentage of students get into firms which they never use 'those claimed/feeded skills into their students by the Institutes'. Now Dude, don't ask for development in India.

To put in one sentence . True heights do not claim themselves them as great.
Ref: A.R Rahman, Adam Gilchrist.

PostMan said...

@Chan
I am sorry to say but I didn't exactly get what you have said.Kindly elaborate. However I agree with that quote you have made.