University of the Year 2015

The year 1995 has witnessed India's first private university - Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical & Technological Science. Thereafter the number of private universities increased up to 226 offering a multidisciplinary podium of learning. Although the system of education has been open to varied subject interests, yet it was not widely open to every part of the country and students have faced many hardships in terms of caste, race, marginalization and such social differences. Over the years, the education system of India has accepted these differences and evolved into a much liberal factor in today's developments. However, this liberal approach was not enough. Recently, at the Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies Universities Summit, key point for discussion was that the higher education scenario of India could have been much improved till now if the capital for funding universities would have been forwarded, which are unlikely addressed as unavailable. To counterpoint this, students are seen to have availed higher education in the country instead of rushing to enroll in foreign universities these days. This shift of choices by the students directs that there has been effort to develop the education system by the government. 

To have ranked among top 100 universities in the world, Indian Universities need to be Research Universities instead of being teaching universities to achieve high growth and inclusive development on a sustainable basis as told by Prof Lawrence Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University on a recent talk delivered in Mumbai University. However, the higher education sector in the country has transformed into employability based learning from knowledge based learning. To inculcate the students to cope up with professional challenges is much more important for these institutions than to merely provide certificates and thereby, the students are trained well for jobs. To support these discussions on universities in the country, we bring you some of the top universities across the country selected by our panel of experts as the 'University of the Year 2015.' The institutes have been selected on the basis of their performance in pedagogy, placements, research and the quality of education they deliver, which implies their performance to bring in quality to the education system.