South Africa has eight of the top 15 universities in Africa but its higher learning institutions are rated as the worst performing among the Brics emerging market nations, two separate reports released this week said.
A study released by the UK-based Times Higher Education magazine rated UKZN fifth in Africa while the universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand topped the list followed by Makerere University in Uganda and the University of Stellenbosch, which came in third and fourth respectively.
The ranking was based on the scores for research influence, which refers to how many African universities’ research papers are referred to and cited by other academics across the globe, according to a statement from Times Higher Education on Wednesday.
“To be included in this future-gazing table, an institution must have published a minimum of 500 research papers in the five-year period assessed with at least 50 papers per year,” read the statement.
The full table, which contains the top 30 universities on the continent, will be revealed at the inaugural Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit, at the University of Johannesburg at the end of this month.
In a second separate study, released by QS University Rankings, South Africa did not rank among the top 10 institutions when compared with the other Brics countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Of the 404 Brics institutions that were evaluated, the University of Cape Town was ranked 14th, five places lower than in 2014, and the University of Witwatersrand was 28th, with only four South African universities making it to the top 50.
South Africa was ranked last in the World Economic Forum’s 2015 report on the quality of maths and science education and 139th out of 143 countries in the overall quality of its education system.
Commenting on the Times Higher Education results, UKZN said the university’s fifth position clearly indicated “that in just 10 years, we have made a mark on the continent and in the world. This is the product of the hard work from our academics, students and staff in general. When one looks at the top five, the separation in terms of the overall score is a mere 10 points”.
Source: DAILY NEWS REPORTER and REUTERS
