Chief Executive Officer of South Africa’s Universities, Professor Ahmed Bawa says it is unfair to compare some universities with others because the rankings don’t measure the kind of things that our universities are expected to do.
This follows the release of university rankings, where the credibility of higher education at South Africa’s top institutions is on decline while Chinese universities are ranking at the top.
The Times Higher Education Emerging Economies University Rankings 2018 consist of a total of 378 universities from 42 countries‚ across four continents.
The scores are calculated from amongst others; Teaching, Research Citations, International Outlook, and Industry Income.
South Africa has eight universities ranked the same as last year. The University of Cape Town (UCT)‚ drops five positions to rank number nine, the University of the Witwatersrand has dropped to 12th‚ from 8th the year before. However, the University of Johannesburg has shown some improvements, for example‚ climbs 49 places to rank joint 92nd.
He also emphasised that our universities do well with research and citations.
“UCT’s citation was way ahead of those Chinese universities, ‘we should not knock ourselves too hard. There are things that our university do very well which are not measured by the ranking system.’
Bawa says what the ranking system doesn’t measure the things that our university do well with.
Click for the full interview:
