Only one Nigerian university is ranked among the top 800 universities in the world, according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015/2016 released this week.

PREMIUM TIMES’ analysis of the report showed that the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest university, is ranked 601st of the world’s top 800 universities featured in the survey, 200 steps lower than Makerere University, Uganda, which is ranked 401st.

The ranking was released on Wednesday, September 30, 2015.

The University of Cape Town, South Africa, at 120th position, is the highest ranked university in Africa, 481 steps higher than the University of Ibadan.

Five other South African universities are included in the list of top notch universities in the world, making it the highest from a single African country.

They are University of Witwatersrand (20ist); Stellenbosch University (301st); University of KwaZulu-Natal (401st); University of Pretoria (501st); and University of South Africa (601st).

Three Egyptian universities, Alexandria University, Cairo University, and Suez Canal University are all ranked 601st on the list.
Just like Nigeria and Uganda, only one Ghanaian university, the University of Ghana is on the list, and it is ranked 601st.
Morocco too has only one university, University of Marrakech Cadi Ayyad (601th), on the list.

Altogether, 13 universities from six African countries are included among the top 800 universities in the world.
But despite having only one university in the ranking, this year’s rating is a great leap for Nigeria. No Nigerian university has featured in the ranking since 2011 when the survey began.

The California Institute of Technology, United States, occupies the number one spot in the world.

The University of Oxford, United Kingdom is on the 2nd position, while Stanford University, United States and University of Cambridge, United Kingdom are on the 3rd and 4th positions respectively.

Top Ten World's University for 2015/2016
Top Ten World's University for 2015/2016
Top Ten World’s University for 2015/2016
Other top ranked institutions are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States (5th); Harvard University, United States (6th); Princeton University, United States (7th); Imperial College London, United Kingdom (8th); ETH Zurich-Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland (9th); and University of Chicago, United States (10th).


The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, according to its website, assesses the best global universities across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
The survey uses “13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and even governments”.

The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment), Research (volume, income and reputation), Citations (research influence), International outlook (staff, students and research) and Industry income (knowledge transfer).