UAE universities top regional charts

Top 25 Universities - QS University Rankings: Arab Region 2014/15 Institution Name 1- King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) 2- American University of Beirut (AUB) 3- King Saud University (KSU) 4- American University in Cairo 5- King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) 6- United Arab Emirates University 7- American University of Sharjah 8- University of Jordan 9- Cairo University 10- Jordan University of Science and Technology 11- Alexandria University 12- Université Saint-Joseph De Beyrouth 13- Ain Shams University 14- Lebanese American University 15- University of Sharjah 16- Qatar University 17- American University In Dubai 18- King Faisal University 19- Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) 20- Khalifa University 21- Sultan Qaboos University 22- King Khalid University 23- Zayed University 24- University of Balamand 25- Abu Dhabi University

Getting the top spot in international university rankings is back on the agenda for UAE’s biggest universities. Two new ranking reports launched this month put UAE universities on top of the regional ranking charts — giving a pat on the back for education officials and academics.

The first-ever QS Arab region university ranking report had 10 universities from the UAE ranked among the top 50. UAE University, American University of Sharjah, American University in Dubai, Khalifa University and Zayed University featured among the top 25.

Ben Sowter, head of the QS Intelligence Units said: “The rankings focus on the relevance of an international faculty and an international student body. The sheer peculiarity and uniqueness of our approach is the employer reputation element.”

While critics and academics have panned such comparative rankings for lack of transparency and ambiguous data collection, universities claim ‘world-class’ standards as a reason for their success.

U.S. News & World Report, a leading U.S. based publisher of education analysis and rankings also unveiled its inaugural Best Arab Region Universities rankings on usnews.com at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Doha recently.

Speaking with Khaleej Times, Robert Morse, Chief Data Strategist and head of educational research at U.S. News said: “There hasn’t been transparency when it comes to data sharing with external stakeholders. The UAE has been making efforts to standardise data collection but it has not been able to draw comparisons with other countries that have mature ranking systems.”

While the U.S News report relied on research and faculty publications as a key parameter for ranking universities – the report by QS relied on a more comprehensive combination of faculty and student data.

How are the universities ranked by QS? > Academic Reputation > Employer Reputation > Faculty Student ratio > International Faculty > International Students > Staff with PhD > Web Impact > Papers per Faculty > Citations per Paper

“We have plans to evolve the ranking methodology and do reputational surveys of academics and employers to collect data from the schools themselves. There are few Middle Eastern schools which publish papers and meet the minimum threshold to become a part of our rankings,” said Robert.

Interestingly, 20 international branch campuses based in Dubai International Academic City (DIAC) are left out of the rankings. Ranking providers cite the classic example of being unable to compare apples with oranges.

Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director of TECOM Investments Education Cluster (DIAC) says, “We understand that education hubs, no matter where they are, must be innovative in order to be successful as in today’s ever increasingly globalised world, students can choose any number of countries to study in. These universities must offer bespoke courses that cater to industry demand, and create employable global citizens with adaptable and transferable skill sets.”

While branch campuses have yet to be ranked globally, Dr Ayoub is confident of high standards in the education cluster.

“Asian universities, similar to those in the Middle East, are taking advantage of their booming economies. Increased spending power of the likes of China, Singapore and South Korea has led to a rise in rankings of universities from those countries due to an increased budget on scientific research and multi-million dollar investment programmes. Another way of taking advantage of the uptick in GDP growth is to increase their partnership and collaboration with other, global universities,” he added. -muaz@khaleejtimes.com