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| Low Ranking For Ghanaian Universities |
11/18/2005 |
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Low Ranking For Ghanaian Universities
Ghanaian universities performed poorly in the latest Times Higher Education rankings.
University of Ghana, Legon ranked number 46 (of 100) Africa and 5,794 in the world, while Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) ranked number 62 and 6,405 in Africa and the world respectively. The other Ghanaian universities did not even make the list.
The world ranking of the best universities had no African university for the second year running. Harvard University retained its last year’s position as the foremost university in the world.
It will be recalled that, on 27 September 2003, the Vice Chancellor of KNUST, Prof Kwesi Andam claimed KNUST had been labeled as the best technical university in Africa and the fifth best in the world (read).
Martin Ince, coordinator of World University Ranking disclosed that there were some changes in the ratings from last year’s. “Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, moved from third to second position. Cambridge leapt to the third place from its sixth position in 2004, displacing Oxford University. The University of California, Beckley, slipped from second in 2004 to sixth,” the coordinator said.
The Vanguard newspaper, of Nigeria, wrote in an editorial:
University of Ibadan, Uganda’s University of Makerere, University of Cairo and University of Legon, Ghana, were once counted among the best in the world. Scholars from Europe, America and Asia flocked to them to drink from the fountain of their excellence. South Africa’s University of Witswaterand, a recent entrant, is touted among Africa’s best. What happened to them?
If these universities could not book a place among top ranked universities in the world, the chances of African universities making the list was foreclosed.
African universities could achieve the criteria adopted in the ranking, if politics had not taken over the place of academics in all ramifications. Research output, published articles of staff, teachers/student’s ratio measured by universities with over-enrolment, proportion of international staff, and proportion of international student were used as criteria.
“The 2005 ranking added employers’ rating of graduates and peer review using 2,375 research active academics. African universities would be among the first to admit that they are mostly out of touch in these areas.
Governments and the private sector have to do something about research funding. It is obvious that funds for research projects are inadequate. Facilities in universities have broken down as enrolment increases by the day. The political climate in Africa does not encourage influx of foreign students or lecturers.
Employers in the continent barely have serious regards for products of these universities, who are unwilling beneficiaries of unstable academic time tables, famished libraries, and the brain drain that takes most of the continent’s manpower abroad.
A total overhaul of the general wellbeing of Africans is imperative if the universities that sit at the apex of the education system are not to suffer the neglect that permeates.
Complete Ranking
Source:
GHP
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