IIT-Kharagpur best technology school in India: Survey

New Delhi, Dec 27 : The premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur is the best technology school in the country followed by IIT-Delhi, revealed a new survey released Sunday.

The survey that studied 111 engineering and technology schools in the country said: "IIT Kharagpur has topped the list for the third consecutive year."

On a scale of 100, this elite engineering institute has scored 81.9 points, which is closely followed by IIT-Delhi that has scored a close 78.49 points. The survey was carried out by research firm IDC and technology magazine Dataquest.

"The six prestigious IITs dominate the list of Top 10 T-Schools survey," it added.

The IITs located at Madras, Kanpur, Roorkee and Guwahati took the next four slots in the survey. The top 10 was completed by International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Surathkal and Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT BHU) at number seven, eight, nine and 10, respectively.

"Interestingly, IIIT Hyderabad is the youngest college, set up in 1998, to make it to the Top 10 list. IIT Bombay did not participate," the survey revealed.

While NIT Warangal, is the 11th best technology school in the country, the Delhi Technology University (formerly Delhi College of Engineering) has occupied the 12th spot.

These engineering and technology colleges were reviewed on several parameters like quality of teaching, placement, industry interface, IT facilities and research papers.

Individually, IIT Kharagpur scored high on Human Resource (HR) perception, while IIT Delhi ranked high on placement records. The HR perception score is based on how recruiters rate each college during their campus visits. Placement score is based on percentage of students placed, number of companies visiting campuses as well as the maximum and average salary offered per annum.

The survey, revealed a drop in overall placements to 73 percent in 2009 from 84 percent in 2007-08. Slowdown impacted on the placement, with number of companies visiting campuses as well as number of jobs offered showing a dip.

Only 16 of the Top 111 T-Schools reported 100 percent placement to its students. These included BITS Pilani, IIT Kanpur; Institute of Technology, BHU; Orissa Engineering College, Bhubaneswar and several NITs.

The average annual salaries of IIT graduates registered a drop of 5 percent to Rs.588,000 during 2009, while the average salary of NIT graduates salary improved 6 percent to Rs.436,000 annually.

"The T-Schools must focus on the quality of faculty and original research to improve the employability of students and funding of research projects," said Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor of Dataquest.