2016 is in the corner and there is no better time to discuss the developments that happened over the past 365 days as a lead to a talk about the future of higher education in the country - its scope and articulation of the post 2015 development agenda. Though, there were some positives impacts from the government's initiatives like increased allocation in annual budget to boost higher learning and Make in India mission that promises more employment opportunities, we cannot blindly infer 2015 as prosperous year for higher educational institutions in the country. Government's IIM Bill that raised a storm of protest from the boards of most of the premier institutes and the persisting poor performance of our universities in world rankings remain as major setbacks of 2015. Sadly, Times Higher Education's worldwide top-400 list saw only four Indian universities with India's top-ranked university ranking in the range of 276-300 worldwide.
The call for improving the quality of educational institutions in India got a new shape when Ministry of Human Resource Development unveiled its India-Centric Ranking Framework for colleges and universities. If all goes as planned, in April 2016, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) will release the rankings for all the 122 centrally-funded institutions, including all central universities, IITs and IIMs, in the first round. Subsequently, other participating institutions will be ranked as well. While, the participation of private and public institutions in this initiative is not mandatory, the stakeholders of education system are skeptical on the outcome. If the government officials can put up a sincere and transparent effort, this ranking could be a real movement to encourage institutions across the country to take up the quality constraints seriously or else it will be considered as another political game at the expense of improving the quality of education.
Amidst of these discussions, we are lunching 'Engineering College of the Year 2015' – An yearly practice that we have been doing since our inception to find the best performers among the technical institutes in the country. By considering broad parameters like Infrastructure, Faculty, Industry Interaction, Innovative Programs, Research and Placements, our team of experts consisting of top HR managers and Educationalists has categorized each entry by understanding the institute's key strength. In the next few pages, we will bring you the some of the top engineering colleges across the country selected by our panel of experts as the 'Engineering College of the Year 2015.'
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