As it turns out, Jairam Ramesh?s remarks that the IIT?s faculties were not world class wasn?t far off the mark. The 2011 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities shows that India has just one university that made it to the top 500 in the world, and no, it wasn?t an IIT despite the fact that these institutions admit the top 0.1% of India?s eligible population. It was the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). The IITs had one entry in the top 500 last year?IIT Kharagpur?but even that college didn?t make the cut this time around, since it had been sliding anyway from being between 303-401 in 2008 to 401-500 in 2010. IIT Delhi last figured on the list, at between 401 and 500, way back in 2003.

China, on the other hand, has been steadily increasing its share in the top 500 universities?from just 8 in 2005, to 22 in 2010 and 23 in 2011. Little surprise then that China has managed to maintain a scorching pace of economic growth for so many years while India is spluttering after less than a decade of high growth. China has 19.6% of the world?s population, but with 7% of the world?s top 500 universities, it has 9.9% of global GDP?India has 17.1% of population and just 2.8% of GDP since it has just 0.2% of the top 500 universities. The equation is a simple one: as GDP grows, so do wages and this makes industries/economies uncompetitive; the only way to fix the balance is through hikes in productivity and that comes from not just education, but from top class education, the type that results in more patents, for instance?India?s patents record is improving but is a small fraction of China?s.

So why doesn?t India have better universities? Well, a recent report by the University Grants Commission found that the 15 IITs were short of 1,693 teachers. Then there?s the reservations and the bureaucratic obscurantism that ensures there?s no punishment for poor performers or rewards for high performers, how can they, if you have reservations as an instrument of state policy?under the new Right to Education Act, state governments are to prescribe even the size of classrooms and salaries for primary school teachers. What bets even the IISc falls off the list next year?