Only 14 African schools ranked among world’s best universities of 2018

Out of a thousand top-ranked universities of the world, only 14 were from Africa. This was captured in the 2018 World University Rankings published by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR).

CWUR measures the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research without relying on surveys and university data submissions.

The United States has eight universities in the top-10 with Harvard University being ranked top for the seventh year in a row since the inception of the ranking in 2012. It is followed by Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Columbia University, California Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago.

The score is tabulated by the following seven indicators: Quality of Education, Alumni Employment, Quality of Faculty, Research Output, Quality Publications, Influence and Citations.

With these indicators, only 14 universities in Africa made the list. 7 were from South Africa, 4 from Egypt, and one each from Nigeria, Tunisia and Uganda.

The University of Cape Town in South Africa ranked 223 worldwide but was the top university among the 14 African representatives. It was followed by the University of the Witwatersrand (230), University of KwaZulu-Natal (402), University of Pretoria (438), Stellenbosch University (448), University of Johannesburg (790), and North-West University (964).

Uganda’s Makerere University ranked 771 ahead of the last two ranked universities from South Africa.

The four Egyptian universities from the highest ranked are Cairo University (452), Ain Shams University (715), Mansoura University (884), Alexandria University (903).

Tunisia’s Tunis El Manar University ranked 908 while Nigeria’s University of Ibadan ranked among the last 10 in the world with 991.

In the same week, the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2018 for universities which are based on the world’s largest invitation-only opinion survey of senior, published academics had no African university in the list.

Similar universities topped the ranking, eight universities from the United States and two from the United Kingdom led by Harvard University.

No Caribbean university featured in both rankings.

Below are the African universities in the 2018 World University Rankings in order of performance.

1. University of Cape Town (South Africa)
2. University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
3. University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)
4. University of Pretoria (South Africa)
5. Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
6. Cairo University (Egypt)
7. Ain Shams University (Egypt)
8. Makerere University (Uganda)
9. University of Johannesburg (South Africa)
10. Mansoura University (Egypt)
11. Alexandria University (Egypt)
12. Tunis El Manar University (Tunisia)
13. North-West University (South Africa)
14. University of Ibadan (Nigeria)