NUS 116th, NTU 310th in Worldwide University Rankings of Research Competitiveness
Wuhan University's reports were meant for a Chinese audience: they are in Chinese and carry nationalistic overtones. For the benefit of people who don't read Chinese, I've made a quick translation of the executive summary written by the team behind the rankings.
The report unintentionally casts Singapore's research aspirations in a negative light - not only is Singapore's top research university ranked 116th worldwide, Singapore does not make the top 30 list of countries in research competitiveness.
While universities in the United States have been trying to tame the frenzy of the college admission process and even break out of the rankings "game," China's rise in recent years has fueled an insatiable appetite for rankings that benchmark Chinese universities against the global research powerhouses like Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Tokyo U, München and Toronto.
From personal conversations, I am of the (possibly misguided) opinion that Chinese students are particularly ranking-obsessed and brand-conscious. NUS and NTU attract Chinese students because they have reputations that place them as superior to most Chinese universities, especially with NUS/NTU's extensive links to prestigious US/UK universities. Of course, they are also more affordable and less selective than Imperial or Johns Hopkins.
What could/should NUS/NTU continue to do to attract and retain top research talent? Yet another personal story that may not be representative: I've a friend who's currently a PhD student at NUS is thinking of leaving for a more prestigious US PhD program she's been accepted into.
Currently, Singapore seems to have played the game rather well, balancing the needs of creating a prestigious perception (to attract foreign students) and building competitive systems (research ties with other universities and attracting research talent). As with many things in Singapore, the most unfortunate group may be local students who feel they've been taken for granted. Locals also tend to be cynical about the high rankings NUS/NTU received from certain reports and argue that the universities have placed brand building over student welfare and their education missions.
What do you think?
(The methodology of this series of rankings, as with many before, is suspect. For example, the rankings consider the nine universities that make up the University of Texas as one university, yet list UC Berkeley and UCLA as separate universities.)
12 comments:
The University of Texas comes under a single administration, hence is a single entity, while Berkeley and UCLA are run separately.
"The University of Texas comes under a single administration, hence is a single entity"
Rubbish.
University of Texas here refers to the one in Austin. The other UT campuses are fully autonomous each with their own administration.
Not only that. It is clearly biased towards big institutions. Note how smaller institutions like CalTech, Princeton, Northwestern and Chicago rank behind institutions that clearly do not produce as much quality per student (say).
"... do not produce as much quality per student"
The ranking is about research competitiveness -- so it's mostly about the quality of the faculty. The quality of the education these universities provide doesn't enter into the picture.
If that's what you're looking for, the US News and THES rankings do measure it to some extent. Factors like faculty-student ratio, graduation rate, median SAT scores, etc, weigh quite substantially in their rankings.
NUS/NTU aren't anywhere close to what they describe themselves to be.
And I won't be donating to their alumni thingy
Only Singaporeans believe that NUS/NTU are world class. What else do you expect from a population that reads Straits Times.
That's why when kids from other countries come to study, they regularly top the classes. So much for the quality of the kids here or should we be blaming the quality of the courseware which is so easy for a foreign student.
Yet, the local student struggles.
I've heard alot about the China and India lecturers teaching in Singapore, which seemed to make up quite abit of the teaching population in NUS & NTU.
A handful of my friends who were studying there have problems understanding these foreign lecturers' lessons and it seemed that only students of their same nationality were able to understand. My friends rather read up on their own, but I seriously feel that NUS and NTU are handicapping our local students.
Anyway at the end of the day, it's all about getting a degree that the Government and Government-linked company recognises. Whether they are world class is seriously not an issue here.
Public Service is the largest employer in Singapore, remember?
Then how come the foreign students are able to understand the local lecturers? How come they don't complain?
Blame the lecturers, blame the university, blame the government, blame everyone else other than the fact that the local students suck big time.
anonymous 6:32:
That's why I said quality per student (SAY). You could count quality per faculty member if you like. I meant research quality as well. I submit that if you count research quality per faculty member the four institutions I mentioend would still come out way above the likes of UCSF and Minnesota. You have got to be nuts if you think the average research quality (per graduate student, or per faculty, or however one scales these things down by size) of CalTech and Princeton is any less than all those ranked above them.
Blame the lecturers, blame the university, blame the government, blame everyone else other than the fact that the local students suck big time.
Ha. I sense immense ignorance from someone. But again, I shall resist the temptation to lower myself to argue against sour grapes.
Nice way of dodging the truth.
--------------
Ha. I sense immense ignorance from someone. But again, I shall resist the temptation to lower myself to argue against sour grapes.
No honestly most of my local friends who previously thought that NUS and NTU were pretty good have a total opposite opinion on it after a semester.
and to that anonymous guy:
have you tried it for yourself?
Post a Comment