Something's amiss in how universities are ranked

Emeritus Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak 
Opinion - New Straits Times 
October 19, 2022 

THE university rankings were out last week, bringing not-so-good news to the premier institutions of several Asean countries.

Except for Singaporean institutions, Malaysian, Philippine and Indonesian varsities had fallen from their previous positions. There is no Malaysian university among the top 350, no Philippine university in the top 800, (like Thailand), and no Indonesian university among the top 1,000.

Oxford remains at the top, with Cambridge and Harvard following. The top 10 seemed more stable, but that depends on which "game" one is interested in.

For example, according to the 2023 Guardian University Guide of UK, published late last month, Oxford is second and Cambridge third. "St Andrews took the best university title for the first time in The Guardian's rankings of Britain's top graduate institutions," according to the guide. 

Understandably, Oxford did not acknowledge this rank, like it did for the others.

Last year, it was third, and second in 2020. The vice-chancellor attributed it to "everyone who works and studies here", where "incoming students having higher entry grades along with high student satisfaction scores for its teaching, as well as a larger number of graduates gaining employment or going on to postgraduate studies".

To imagine that Oxford and Cambridge are outranked after leading for the last umpteen years, boggles the mind. Much like why the University of Tokyo did not do better as an Asian institution with an impressive number of Nobel laureates.

In other words, the rankings are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (a managerial concept often abbreviated to Vuca) depending on who is the game-master. For instance, it is interesting to note that the guide looked at the score for teaching, where most rankings are biased towards research and publication.

Interestingly, in the table that Oxford leads for the last seven years, St Andrews managed only to be in the top 200 together with another Scottish university, Dundee. While Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, which are among the older, reputable Scottish universities did better at 29 and 82 respectively.

By The Guardian guide, Glasgow and Edinburgh are not even in the top 10, at number 11 and 12 respectively, with Glasgow leading by a mere point. Whereas Edinburgh led by a huge margin of more than 50 places as claimed by the other ranking.

Still, another Scottish university that has a campus in Putrajaya is only placed 46th (a drop from 36th in 2022) and in the top 500 category in the other league table. Many local universities did better than this despite the drop.

Something is amiss in the rankings. We have not ventured to our official (commercial) vendor that generally has a lesser reputation and standing among the other rankers. Already one can feel and sense as to how Vuca, if not dubious, rankings are, especially those so-called international ones.

Studies have repeatedly indicated that a local accreditation assessment like that of The Guardian Guide would be more accurate because of the context and closer reach. For Malaysia, SETARA is the one.

Therefore, the rankings game is up. It is time-wasting and infested with vested interests. The time has come to meet the postCovid-19 demands, especially in the education sector globally.

The writer, an NST columnist for more than 20 years, is International Islamic University Malaysia rector