Nigerian universities fail to make list of world’s top 1,000

The Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) has just released its 2016 ranking of universities across the world.

Sadly, no university in Nigeria made the list of the world’s top 1,000.
The ranking, released on Monday, placed Harvard University, United States, on top as the best higher institution in the world, followed by Stanford University, also in the U.S.
Another school in the U.S, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the third best in the world.

Two universities in the United Kingdom, University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, are ranked fourth and fifth respectively.

Five other American universities are also ranked within the top 10 – they are Columbia University, sixth position; University of California, Berkley, seventh; University of Chicago, eighth; Princeton University, ninth; and Yale University, 10th.
The U.S has a total number of 224 universities among the top 1,000, followed by China, with 90.

Japan has 74, while the United Kingdom has 65.
Others are: Germany, 56; France, 48; Italy, 48; Spain, 41; South Korea, 36; Canada, 32; Australia, 27.

In Africa, only universities in South Africa and Egypt made the list. South Africa has five, while Egypt has four.

For South Africa, the five universities and their rankings, according to the CWUR, are: University of Witwatersrand, 176th; University of Cape Town, 265th; Stellenbosch University, 329th; University of KwaZulu-Natal, 468th; and the University of Pretoria, 697th.

The four from Egypt are Cairo University, 771st; Ain Shams University, 960th; Mansoura University, 985th; and Alexandria University, 995th.
No Nigerian university also made the list in 2015.

CWUR said it used eight objectives and robust indicators to rank the world’s top 1,000 universities, and listed them as follows:

1) Quality of Education, measured by the number of a university’s alumni who have won major international awards, prizes, and medals relative to the university’s size [25%]

2) Alumni Employment, measured by the number of a university’s alumni who have held CEO positions at the world’s top companies relative to the university’s size [25%]

3) Quality of Faculty, measured by the number of academics who have won major international awards, prizes, and medals [25%]

4) Publications, measured by the number of research papers appearing in reputable journals [5%]

5) Influence, measured by the number of research papers appearing in highly-influential journals [5%]

6) Citations, measured by the number of highly-cited research papers [5%]

7) Broad Impact, measured by the university’s h-index [5%]

8) Patents, measured by the number of international patent filings [5%]