By Elijah Odhiambo
The University of Nairobi has been named the only Kenyan University to make it to the top 2,000 universities globally.
In the 2023 ranking edition by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) released on Monday, UoN was placed 1,425th on the list and ranked as the leading higher learning institution in Kenya.
CWUR added that UoN’s employability rank was recorded at 1,610 which was measured by the professional success of its alumni, including the number of top positions they have held at major companies relative to the university’s size (25 percent).
UoN’s ranking has however dropped from its position in the CWUR 2022 edition, which placed it at the 1,404th position.
CWUR analysed 62 million outcomes-based data points to rank universities from around the world on four factors: the assessments of the quality of education (25 percent), alumni employment (25 percent), quality of faculty (10 percent), and research performance (40 percent without relying on surveys and university data submissions.
This year, 20,531 universities were ranked.
UoN Vice-Chancellor Prof. Stephen Kiama was delighted to hear the news.
“Obviously we’re delighted. Students at UoN are taught from new knowledge based on research. We have a huge responsibility to maintain the standards we’ve set. The others [universities] know where to go,” Kiama said.
“It is alarming to see only one Kenyan university in the rankings. Funding to further promote the development and reputation of Kenya’s higher education system is vital if the country is to be more competitive on the global stage,” he added.
“Efforts must be made to ensure that Kenya attracts top academics and students, that the increase in university enrolments is matched by an increase in teaching capacity, and that expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of national GDP increases steadily in the coming years”.
Uganda’s Makerere University came in at position 950 and Morocco’s Mohammed V University listed at position 953 .
Other African countries making the list were South Africa with 12 Universities, with the University of Cape Town leading at position 267.
Egypt followed with 20 universities with Cairo University ranking top at position 520.
Tunisia’s only university that made the list, Tunis El Manar University, was placed at position 976 and Nigeria’s University of Ibadan came in at number 1,163, leading its three other universities that made the list.
Tanzania was last with the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences ranking at 1,920.
The top 10 is dominated by universities from the US, with 332 institutions in the list. For the twelfth year running, Harvard is the world’s top university with a perfect score of 100 percent.
It is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, while the UK’s Cambridge and Oxford (ranked fourth and fifth respectively) are the only non-US universities in the top ten.
Top 10 universities in Africa
In Africa, the top ten universities are;
- Cape Town (267th),
- Witwatersrand (290th),
- Stellenbosch (450th),
- KwaZulu-Natal (478th),
- Cairo (520th),
- Pretoria (557th),
- Johannesburg (628th),
- Ain Shams (772nd),
- Addis Ababa (862nd)
- North-West (887th).
