Outlook-Icare Rankings 2021: India's Best Colleges

Higher education systems are expanding rapidly around the globe to satisfy the greater need and demand for access to education. Increased access to higher education enhances individual opportunity as well as national economic development and competitiveness in a globalised world. As a result, there is unprecedented growth in the number of students attending colleges and universities, and a rise in the number of public and private institutions around the world. In this changing context, quality and accountability have received increasing attention from policymakers and educationists internationally. In many developing countries, rankings, ratings and national assessment and accreditation systems have significant impacts, especially on the governance and internal management of higher educational institutions, and relationships between institutions and government, and between institutions and its stakeholders.

India has witnessed a new paradigm shift in its culture of education with the first National Education Policy (NEP) of the 21st century released in 2020 after 34 years. With an ­unprecedented allocation of 6 per cent of the GDP towards education, this new policy document launched by the government of India is aimed at paving the way for transformational reforms in school and higher education systems, to make India a global ­knowledge superpower.