UP ranks 398 and Ateneo 451

UP ranks 398 and Ateneo 451
DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco
THE PHILIPPINE STAR, December 12, 2007

Dr. Ernie E has just sent me the 2007 rankings of universities in the world as published by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The good news is, two of our universities are among the top 500 worldwide: UP at 398 and Ateneo at 451. No other local university is in the list… not UST which is older than Harvard, nor is La Salle , Ateneo’s perennial rival.

My initial reaction was disappointment that we didn’t rank higher but on second thought, we should be glad we ranked in the top 500 at all. Given the meager resources of UP, we should be proud that it is considered competitive worldwide… and ranks higher than the better financed Ateneo. Can anyone imagine how far we could have gone if only we gave our universities better financial support?

HARVARD University leads the list of top universities, followed by a three-way tie for number two among YALE University , University of OXFORD and University of CAMBRIDGE . Imperial College LONDON is on fifth, PRINCETON University at sixth, University of CHICAGO and the CALIFORNIA Institute of Technology on a tie for seventh, UCL (University College LONDON) follows and MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology is on tenth place.

The rest of the top 20 are as follows: 11 COLUMBIA University; 12 MCGILL University – Canada; 13 DUKE University - United States; 14 University of PENNSYLVANIA; 15 JOHNS HOPKINS University; 16 AUSTRALIAN National University; 17 University of TOKYO; 18 University of HONG KONG - Hong Kong; 19 STANFORD University; 20 CARNEGIE MELLON University; 20 CORNELL University.

Other noteworthy rankings: 22 University of California, BERKELEY; 25 Kyoto University; 29 Northwestern University; 33 National University of Singapore; 36 Peking University; 38 Chinese University of Hong Kong; 40 Tsinghua University China; 41 University of California Los Angeles; 47 Boston University; 49 New York University; 53 Hongkong University of Science and Technology; 59 London School of Economics;

69 Nanyang Technological University of Singapore; 77 Purdue University; 102 Georgetown University; 119 University of Southern California; 122 Texas A and M; 149 City University of Hong Kong; 159 Tufts University and Michigan State U; 208 Brandeis University; 246 Unversiti Malaya (Malaysia); 307 Universiti Sains Malaysia; 309 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia; 364 Universiti Putra Malaysia; 395 University of Indonesia; (UP at 398),

The full listings feature on the QS website and on the THES website. They have been running since 2004 and are broken down by subject and region. The THES — QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings around the world and the ranking weights are: Peer Review Score (40 percent); Recruiter Review (10 percent); International Faculty Score (five percent); International Students Score (five percent); Faculty/Student Score (20 percent); Citations/Faculty Score (20 percent).

As in any attempt to rank anything, this effort is controversial. There are those who have commented on the credibility of the rankings. Vice-Chancellor of Massey University , Professor Judith Kinnear says the THES — QS ranking is a “wonderful external acknowledgement of several University attributes, including the quality of its research, research training, teaching and employability.” She says the rankings are a true measure of a university’s ability to fly high internationally.

On the other hand, the THES — QS World University Rankings had attracted criticisms ever since it was first published in 2004. The Rankings have been criticized for placing too much emphasis on peer review, which receives 40 percent of the overall score.

There is also another attempt to rank world universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education and includes major institutes of higher education ranked according to a formula that took into account alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10 percent), staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20 percent), “highly-cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories” (20 percent), articles published in Nature and Science (20 percent), the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (20 percent) and the size of the institution (10 percent).

The Shanghai listing’s top 20 are: Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley; UCambridge; Massachusetts Inst of Technology; CalTech; Columbia; Princeton; U of Chicago; UOxford; Yale, Cornell; UCLA; UC San Diego; Univ Pennsylvania; Univ Washington Seattle; Univ Wisconsin Madison; UC San Francisco; Johns Hopkins U; Tokyo U.

I didn’t see any Philippine university in the Shanghai top 500. In fact, the only Southeast Asian universities in the list are from Singapore : NUS and Nanyang.

I guess being on the list is also a function of resources poured into the institutions. We have the raw brain power as proven by Filipinos making good in many of those top ranked world universities. It is just that more Filipinos would have the benefit of world class education if our top universities are given the support needed to compete with the best in the world. That cannot happen unless UP, Ateneo and the others are able to develop and retain good faculty and have the best instructional facilities. I think, specially in the case of UP, we are doing better than expected given the resources available.

It warmed my heart to see UP at all in the Times list. UP is celebrating its centennial next year — and the UP administration led by its president, Dr. Emerlinda Roman had been doing an international road show trying to raise a total of P5 billion to start off a system of assuring UP has funds for faculty development among other needs. Emphasizing the importance of scholarship, President Roman says the amount will be used for professorial chairs, research and creative grants, research dissemination grants, and fellowships.

President Roman is inviting alumni from all around the world to support the endeavor. The theme of the celebration is “UP: Excellence, Service, and Leadership in the Next 100 Years” The UP Centennial Commission hopes to generate a total of P700 million in alumni donations. As it happens, I am told that the largest donation so far came from a non-UP alumni, Filipino Silicon Valley technopreneur Dado Banatao. I guess that’s because Mr. Banatao realizes that UP offers some of our best hopes for economic growth through world class academics.

Hopefully, the UP administration is able to mount a credible drive to get all UP alumni anywhere in the world to come to the aid of their alma mater as we all celebrate UP’s centennial in 2008. I am sure that if the proper approach is made, everyone who has ever studied at UP and is in a position to do something, wouldn’t think twice to help out.

This is understandable as the measures they use in coming up what is best would be different. What is important here is whether U.P. is 1) producing graduates who are marketable in the job market, 2) producing graduates with Filipino social consciousness 3) producing graduates who help in economy, attainment of social justice, political development, technological advancement, cultural strengthening, protection of the environment and those who promote good citizenship.

U.P. should have a different benchmark.


Mon Ignacio
AB '74