The Good Balita

Aside from retaining it’s title in the UAAP Men’s Basketball, Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) has another reason to celebrate: the Katipunan-based campus was the top Philippine university, according to 2009 World University Rankings sponsored by Times Higher Education (THES)- QS.

ADMU ranked 234th in the university rankings, beating University of the Philippines (UP) that had been the top university in the past two years. UP placed 262th and De La Salle University – Manila in the bracket of 401-500 list.

ADMU has been leaping the survey in the past years: It ranked 254th last year and between 400 and 500 in 2006 and 2007, respectively. In the ranking, ADMU this year shared with Brandeis University (US) and School of Oriental and African St (UK).

Meanwhile, Harvard University has been leading the survey in the last six years; followed by University of Cambridge. Rounding out the top five are Yale University, University College London, and Imperial College of London and University of Oxford both tied at fifth.

Top Universities 101

With more and more students opting to matriculate internationally, the THES-QS made the university rankings to guide those looking for the best universities to enroll in. Advise on getting scholarships and getting through university applications are on website, www.topuniversities.com.

According to its website, the THES exists to “give students, academics, funders, politicians, and policy makers a broad view of the top institutions in world higher education.” The site furthers, “a glance of the World University Rankings 2009 will show that the top 200 institutions are far from being a uniform group. They vary in size, the subject they cover, and their commitment to research, although all are substandard producers of all knowledge.”

The organization used a standard scale in ranking the world universities according to Martin Ince, founding editor of THES:

• THES focuses on main characteristics of a university: size, scope and research intensiveness.
• Next is the academic scope of institution: We regard a “fully comprehensive university as being active in five areas of scholarship – science, technology, biomedicine, or social sciences and arts and humanities
• The amount of research has produced in the past five years as
  identified by Scopus.

Ranking universities will remain controversial for the foreseeable future. But there is much less argument than there was two years ago about whether the process should even be attempted. Universities continue to define themselves internationally, both at subject level and as whole institutions. Different rankings have emerged in the past 12 months, and there is broad acceptance that cross-border comparisons are here to stay in higher education.

There remain issues about the advantages enjoyed by English-language universities and those institutions with a base in science and medicine, but there will be continuing efforts to level the playing field as far as is practicable.

 

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4. Volunteer revolutionizes Davao’s pre-school education system
5. RP’s competitiveness rating jumps in 2010 survey

 

 

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