Different systems of university rankings have released results of the 2024 world and continental rankings of universities. While there have been some deserved celebrations by top performing universities and those who support university rankings, the practice has caused some serious stir in the camp of universities and stakeholders which are against these university log standings.
The two schools of thought on university rankings were pronounced this month at the Conference of Rectors and Vice Chancellors held recently in Namibia. Delegates to this prestigious conference were divided into those supported the practice of ranking universities and those who vehemently opposed it. Needless to say, in such contestation of thoughts, there will always be fence-sitters, those who choose to be neutral.
Proponents of university rankings give a variety of reasons why all universities should be subjected to the practice. They argue that ranking universities is healthy in the sense that it measures how universities perform on a global scale. In addition, ranking universities provides a sense of competition in offering quality higher education to students. For the purposes of this article, I shall refer to two sets of criteria used by two systems of university rankings.
A look at the performance indicators used by the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education Rankings to rank universities, one realises that there are striking similarities with the major aim for both ranking schemes being to promote the provision of quality higher education to students. The QS World University Rankings system measures universities according to sustainability, employment outcomes, international research network or collaboration, academic reputation, faculty to student ratio, employer reputation. It can be deduced here that more in this system, emphasis is placed on graduate employability more than anything else. It is a goal for all higher education institutions to produce employable graduates, but it is not always a case for graduates from some institutions.
Similarly, the Times Higher Education Ranking system focuses on industry income (innovation), international diversity, teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation) and citations – research impact). Supporters of universities posit that the two sets of performance indicators perform a complementary role and that it does not matter much which system undertakes the ranking of university exercise. The claim is that, in the end, it is societies that benefit when universities produce highly skilled graduates. Universities in are therefore encouraged to view rankings in a positive way since the whole exercise is not a name and shame game. Rankings promote institutional prestige and influence. Rankings promote quality education which is “essential for a university to prove to keep its standing in global international rankings” (Khan and others, 2020, p190).
On the contrary, those who are against university rankings say that the rankings are unfair. The rankings treat all universities as the same by subjecting them to the same performance indicators. They claim, but not without cause, that under-resourced universities, especially in Africa, cannot have the same performance parameters as well-resourced universities. It is a misnomer, for instance, to use the same criteria to compare the performance of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and University of Cambridge (UK) with some poor universities in Africa. Therefore, there are strong sentiments against international university rankings in some higher education institutions mainly because of the disparities found among institutions in the developed world and those in the developing world. The opponents of university rankings have sarcastically called the practice of international university rankings a futile exercise whose results should not be taken seriously by underprivileged institutions. As I see it, this hard line stance is not suitable in the 21st century; a softer stance is therefore recommended.
University rankings are necessary since they perform a positive role in higher education institutions in the world. I have a conviction, that one day, the underprivileged institutions will achieve favourable positions in the international log standings. Top performers started from somewhere; they were not always at the top.
*Professor Jairos Kangira is a professor of English at the University of Namibia.
E-mail address: kjairos@gmail.com