South-East Asian countries have become increasingly concerned with global university rankings over the last few years. Two Singaporean universities, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University have consistently performed well in the major rankings while Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) have entered the top five hundred of the Shanghai rankings, although they have been criticised for avoiding the THE World University Rankings. More...
Shanghai Rankings: Growing Diversity among the World’s Elite Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, usually known as the Shanghai rankings, is generally considered the most reliable of the better known global league tables. It has a stable methodology and there is a modest amount of change from year to year. The top ten this year is almost the same as 2014. More...
Growing Interest in Rankings in Africa
The recent African Universities Summit at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, reflects a new interest in university rankings in Africa and also growing concerns about the quality of the continent’s universities. The release at the summit of a ranking according to a single indicator, field normalised citations per paper, showed that South African universities were well ahead of the rest of the continent with Egypt coming a distant second. There were, however, some unexpectedly strong performances from places such as the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. More...
Japanese Universities Seek World Recognition
Japanese universities are facing a drastic overhaul, intended to convert them into either research orientated institutions competing in the world arena or providers of vocational education meeting local needs. One element of the proposed reform programme is an effort to get ten Japanese universities into the top one hundred of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. At the moment there are only two, Tokyo in 23rd place and Kyoto in 59th, although Tokyo Metropolitan University is first in the world for research impact, measured by citations. More...
Webometrics: Rising Stars in Korea, China and Russia
There has been little change at the top since 2009. However, some Asian and European universities have registered substantial advances. Peking University has risen from 104th to 38th place, Seoul National University from 185th to 46th and Lomonosov Moscow State University from outside the top 500 to 138th. More...
Which Universities are the Best in China?
Best Chinese Universities Rankings (BCUR) was jointly announced by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy and Tencent in February 2015. BCUR employs nine carefully selected indicators to evaluate some one thousand Chinese universities, it provides not only an overall ranking but also three specific rankings, including Teaching and Learning Ranking, Research Ranking as well as Social Service Ranking. BCUR is completely transparent by publishing not only the detailed methodology but also raw data of all indicators. More...
Denmark: Still worth getting to
By Craig Willy. An open, liberal economy combined with redistribution and social welfare: The Danish model has largely weathered the storm of the financial and euro crises. Yet, when looking at education and integration, not all is rosy in the Kingdom of Denmark. Read more...
What are the risks of missing out on upper secondary education?
By Dirk Van Damme. In just a couple of decades, upper secondary schooling has been transformed from a vehicle towards upward social mobility into a minimum requirement for life in modern societies.
The most recent OECD data on educational attainment show that in OECD countries in 2013, 34% of 55-64 year-olds but 16% of 25-34 year-olds did not have an upper secondary education. Read more...
What do youth think?
Interview with Allan Päll by Marilyn Achiron. This is a tough time for young people, especially in Europe. Youth un- and underemployment is still at record highs in some countries; and as the OECD Skills Outlook 2015 reports, more than 35 million 16-29 year-olds in OECD countries are neither employed nor in education or training. More worrying still, around half of those young adults are out of school and not looking for work. Read more...
Reaching Maturity in Government Use of Social Media
By Ryan Androsoff. As those of us in the Northern Hemisphere come out of the dog days of summer and our thoughts turn from vacations to our regularly scheduled lives, what better time to pause for a moment in the calm before the storm to think some “big thoughts” about the world around us? For those who work in or with governments, any list of “big thoughts” should continue to include the transformation of government by social media. More...