University of Cape Town’s Global Ranking Drops


By Staff Writer    06-Mar-2014 16:34 UTC+02:00 5

uctThe global ranking of Africa’s top university, the University of Cape Town (UCT), has dropped two times in a row over the past two years. According to the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, UCT is currently number 126 in the world, down 13 positions from last year.

In 2012 and 2013, UCT was ranked number 103 and 113 respectively. However, despite the drop, it remains the only African university in the top 200. Behind UCT is the University of Witwatersrad (Wits), whose position is estimated to be around 226 – 250. The University of Stellenbosch, which is ranked number 3 in Africa, is around number 301-350 in the world. The rankings show only the top 400 universities in the world. The top three African universities that appeared on the list are all from South Africa. No other African university made it to the top 400.

The first position was taken by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) (Sheldon Cooper‘s university 🙂 ) for the third time in a row. The University of Oxford and Harvard University shared the second position while Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took the 4th and 5th positions respectively. These rankings are said to be objective and based on carefully measured overall performances of universities. They take into consideration the quality of teaching, research output, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

However, Harvard University remains the world’s most reputable university, according to the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings, which rank the top 100 universities based on the opinions of reliable academics. MIT, Stanford University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford took positions two to five respectively. Harvard has held position 1 since the reputation rankings were introduced in 2011.



 5 Comments


  1. Luke Spencer says:

    It’s little surprise. What do you expect when you are filling the universities with racial quotas and staffing them be BEE instead of academic excellence and experience. LOL. Few more years and lets see how far we can go.

    • Ted says:

      Racism is what caused the drop, not BEE.

    • Rupesh Hari says:

      Luke, can you tell me how they are staffing people because of race and not due to academic excellence. I am a case in point with a foreign PhD and one of those so called BEE-candidates, yet the old guard’s treatment of me is shocking. My research is far superior than all of them in my department using any standard measure, such as citation, internationalization of research, etc.With such old guards scattered throughout UCT, do you think hiring is purely based on race? Please provide me proof of staffing with BEE and no academic excellence.

  2. Malambe says:

    The UCT belongs to all South Africans – black and white. The only choice is to service all citizens equitably.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Ayikho lento Cambridge Intswempu

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