National university rankings needed

Rankings of world universities, according to a set of criteria that differs from one ranking to another, started to appear and gain prominence less than a decade-and-a-half ago.

At the beginning, many in the academic world were either sceptical of the idea or totally dismissive. Slowly, but steadily, rankings began to be taken seriously.

At a conference on the subject that I attended a few years ago, the conclusion was: “The rankings are here to stay.”

At present, most academics and most universities in the world have not only accepted and even welcomed the idea; they have also started to take rankings as reliable indicators of universities’ performance.

This heightened interest in rankings also applies, naturally, to universities in our part of the world, where most are eager to achieve prominent rankings, but have not succeeded so far, despite some improvements here and there.

It is important for us to continue to take world rankings seriously and to work towards qualifying ourselves better for them.

The word “qualifying” here is crucial, as rankings are not necessarily significant in and of themselves, but because of the advantageous process of improvement and development that comes with it.

Since our universities are in need of much improvement and development, engagement with the rankings becomes a necessity.

Having said this, however, one should also stress that it is time to come up with a mechanism for ranking our universities nationally.

Until now, no serious steps have been taken in this direction. It is incumbent upon the Ministry of Higher Education to take this idea seriously, draw the basic criteria, set up a mechanism and then implement it rigorously.

The need for national — as opposed or complementary to international — rankings is both urgent and timely.

World rankings may not match our situation entirely, for they focus on criteria that are not necessarily considered a priority in our situation, such as the extent and quality of research, the number of Nobel Prize winners among faculty members, the ratio of national to international faculty members, etc.

While most of our universities pay attention to research, for example, they are not really research institutions in the international sense of the word — at least not yet.

They are teaching institutions and teaching is not underscored in international rankings.

So what is required is a process of national rankings built on criteria that matches our own objectives and aspirations whose underlying purpose should be to help universities address the many gaps in their performance: the quality and relevance of teaching, the quality of the learning environment, the sustainability of the campus, meeting students’ needs, the ratio of teaching to research, community service, etc.

Additionally, our universities — unlike most universities in the world — have never been nationally ranked.

Ranking them according to the criteria just mentioned will serve many other functions: help students and parents decide which programme or university to join, guide the government in taking the right decisions and offering the right support, etc.

For these and other reasons, setting up a mechanism for ranking our universities is a must.