Graduate Employability: IIT-D, IISc, IIT-B among top 100 universities in the world

IIT-Delhi beat big names such as University of Chicago, University of California Berkley and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Three Indian universities – IIT Delhi, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru and IIT Bombay -- have been named among the top 100 universities in the world for graduate employability.

India has done well this year.

IIT Delhi has secured a global rank of 27, better than marquee names such as University of Chicago, University of California Berkley and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, according to the Global Employability University Ranking and Survey (GEURS) brought out on Wednesday. 

Besides, IISc was placed at 61 (climbing 10 ranks from 2020) and IIT-Bombay was ranked 97 (climbing 31 ranks), according to the survey of 10,928 international recruiters, and managers in 23 countries and regions.

The annual survey, done by higher education HR consultancy Emerging and published by UK-headquartered Times Higher Education (THE), ranks the top 250 universities.

The study placed MIT, California Institute of Technology, Harvard, Cambridge and Stanford as the top five universities, and observed that IIM-A and IIT Kharagpur are showing a marked improvement in their rankings this year.

The findings underscored Indian universities’ clear advancement for the “first time in years due to strengths in subject specialisation and graduate skills”. India’s Amity University (225 rank) too has been placed in the top 250 employability list.

“India’s universities see a clear rise for the first time in a number of years thanks to the rise of soft skills and digital literacy and technical and research specialization. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi holds on to 27th place and all other universities ranked last year (six total) climb an average of 20 places in the table. Bangalore University (249th) enters the ranking for the first time,” it added.

Rising stars

The survey said the top ten saw the US, UK, Japan and Singapore represented, but there’s a whole host of countries that are rising stars. “Mainland China, France, India and Spain are among those countries and regions that rise, while the United Kingdom (UK), US, India, and Israel stand out for their digital performance,” THE said in an email.

Sandrine Belloc, managing partner at Emerging, said the annual ranking specifically addresses the student need to identify those universities that offer the best prospects for future employment.

“It provides them with the reasons behind recruiters’ choices and shows that indicators such as digitalization, specialization or soft skills are increasingly important, much more so than the prestige of a university’s name. The resulting rankings provide a diverse range of universities for students to consider when thinking about who to invest in for their higher education to help shape their personal path into a successful and rewarding career,” Belloc added.

The ranking is based on a framework of six key drivers identified by businesses as the main contributors to creating employable graduates -- academic excellence (research output, quality of teaching staff); digital performance (innovative learning methods, specialist training on digital jobs); focus on work (entrepreneurial environment, relevant work experience as part of the curriculum); soft skills and digital literacy; internationalism (international curriculum/staff); and specialization (up-to-date technical or business expertise, relevant specialized research).