A key factor that may distinguish top institutions from others in the national rankings released on Monday is the percentage of faculty members who hold PhD degrees.

Nearly 80 per cent of faculty members in the top-ranked 100 institutions have PhD degrees compared to the average of 52 per cent for the rest of the institutions, according to data released by the education ministry in the India Ranking booklet.

The data seeks to question the Union government’s move in 2023 to backtrack from its earlier decision to make PhD mandatory for the recruitment of faculty members in universities.

According to the data, there were 1.67 lakh (58.66%) faculty with PhDs in the 1,374 university-level institutions whereas 1.17 lakh (41.34%) had master’s.

“It was observed that faculty with doctoral qualifications is concentrated in the top-100 institutions, the remaining institutions have fewer faculty with doctoral degrees. This is a serious handicap since mentorship received during the doctoral training as a teaching assistant can play a vital role in preparing the faculty for a teaching career in higher education,” said the India Ranking booklet.