The 2014 varsities ranking

In 2013, Twitter posted a job ad for computer science graduates at its proposed “global centre of excellence” in Vancouver, Canada. In the ad, it had unusually specific requirements for bachelor’s degree-holders. Their bachelor’s had to come from one of the world’s top 100 universities as defined by the Times Higher Education (THE), Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), 4ICU or a similar ranking. This, goes to show how powerful university rankings have become.

As far back as 1983, the U.S. News and World Report had begun rating U.S. institutions. Since then, dozens more ranking systems have sprung up, mainly global rankings like those by THE, QS, and the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. These three were launched a decade ago and remain the most established and well known worldwide. They have broadened their offerings over the years while new agencies have entered the field, providing everything from regional rankings to discipline-specific ratings and reputational league tables

However, criticism has dogged all of them to a greater or lesser extent because of the data and methodologies they employ. A central criticism is that rankings measure largely research output and reputation and don’t take into account differing institutional missions.

Another drawback is that rankings systems cover just a small fraction of the world’s institutions, between one and three percent of universities, according to a report by the Brussels-based European University Association. The humanities, fine arts and social sciences are under-represented in the rankings because most of this research is published in books rather than the journals used as bibliometric indicators. Also excluded in some are journals published in languages other than English, because of their lower citation counts, according to the report.

But arguments like these haven’t dampened the popularity of rankings and, many observers agree, their influence over institutional behaviour and public policy is growing which was why twitter job included that section in its job ad.

To say that the education sector in Nigeria has been challenged for years now is to state the obvious. There are issues of funding, infrastructural decay, paucity of qualified lecturers, ratio of lecturers to students, cultism, unpredictable academic calendar etc. Maintaining high standards in the midst of these challenges is even more problematic when combined with frequent strikes by various unions in the public university system.

However, some varsities – despite these challenges – are making modest inroads and are being recognized for their efforts. In the 2014 University Web Ranking conducted by International Colleges and Universities (4ICU) released last Tuesday, University of Ilorin (Unilorin) was adjudged the best university in Nigeria, the 20th best university in Africa and 1842nd in the world.

The 4ICU is an international higher education search engine and directory that constantly reviews accredited universities and colleges across the world. For the latest exercise, it ranked about 11,307 colleges and universities by web popularity in over 200 countries.

The ranking, according to 4ICU, is based upon “an algorithm including three unbiased and independent web metrics extracted from three different search engines: Google Page Rank, Yahoo Inbound Links and Alexa Traffic Rank.”

It said web metrics data are collected on the same day to minimize temporal fluctuations and maximize comparability. A pre-computational filter is adopted to detect outliers in the raw data. The total number of external inbound links (or backlinks) pointing to each university website is also cleaned from duplicate domains based on a statistical sample; unique inbound links (i.e. links coming from different domains) are in fact a much more significant and powerful measure of website link popularity. Finally further investigation and a review of Alexa Traffic Rank data are carried out for universities adopting a subdomain as their official institutional home page.

The latest ranking is a significant leap for the Unilorin which has moved from its last year’s fifth position in Nigeria and 56th in Africa to first and 20th positions respectively. With the new ranking, the institution’s status as the nation’s number one university has been given an international confirmation. This, to me is modest progress.

Statistics released recently by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) after the last Universities Matriculations Examination (UME) seem to tally with this as it showed that the university was the most subscribed university by admission seekers in the country for the 2014/2015 academic session. The University of Benin, Benin City, came second.

Since 2011, Unilorin has maintained a steady rise among most preferred institutions by admission seekers in the country. In 2011, it ranked eighth; it ranked fifth in 2012; second in 2013 and first this year.

The University of Lagos came second in Nigeria and 21st in Africa while the third position goes to Obafemi Awolowo University, which also comes 26th in Africa. Also on the ranking table are: the University of Ibadan came fourth in Nigeria and 38th in Africa; the Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, fifth in Nigeria and 59th in Africa;

Criticism aside, we need more of such rankings to keep our institutions on their toes despite the daunting challenges the Nigerian situation often throws up. We are in the knowledge era and as citadels of learning, our ivory towers should take the lead.



Re: From Liberia with love



Your article “From Liberia with love” in The Nation’s edition of Thursday July 31, 2014 is an interesting piece, particularly the place where you stated inter alia: “in the midst of all this it appears our intelligentsias have gone to sleep, gone are the days when our ivory towers used to be a beehive of heightened intellectual activities. Gone are the days when economists, sociologists, historians and political scientists gather to take inter disciplinary approaches to solving complex national problems that government often find very useful.”

Do I need to state that that signposts the level of frustration in the Nigerian society up to our citadel of learning. But I may ask: which intelligentsias are you talking about? This question becomes imperative when we recall that university teachers (ASUU) only resumed classes a few months back, while their polytechnic counterpart (ASUP) resumed a few weeks back. Did these prolonged strikes send a message?

I dare say it is all signs of frustration cutting across all strata of the citizenry; and how much thinking would striking teachers engage in in order to arrest a bad situation? You did mention economists, sociologist, etc. Which of them would you ascribe that deep thinking to? The economist whose daily living revolves around government patronage, or the historian that deliberately twists facts in order not to offend his political godfathers and other associates?

Let’s also turn to the almighty politician. Is it the politician in the ruling party or the opposition? The politician in the ruling party has surrendered his thinking cap to the party leadership thus he cannot think anymore. The opposition, on its part, is not taken seriously by both the government and the citizens’. His actions are always taken with a pinch of salt no matter how constructive they are. The government, on its part, is self-centered as only its ideas and proposals are deemed “correct.” no matter how distraught the citizenry may feel about such ideas and proposals.

This quagmire is compounded by the poverty prevalent in the society which has made the average citizen dumb and out of tune with current reality and, indeed, subdued. The truth is that the average Nigerian is subdued; it doesn’t matter the level he finds himself- educated or not, employed or not, graduate or under-graduate etc. In conclusion, I’ll say without fear if contradiction that Nigeria needs a revolution.

That again is another kernel. Where does this revolution start from? Is it from the north, south, east or west? That is the dilemma we find ourselves in.

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