Pakistan higher education at the bottom of QS ranking

ISLAMABAD: Despite heavy funding and tall claims of the government, Pakistan’s higher education system has achieved an embarrassing score of 9.2 in the first ever QS Higher Education System Strength Rankings 2016 which placed the country at the bottom of the table.

The assessment released by the reputed Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a global ranking body based in the United Kingdom, ranked India at 24 with 60.9 points. Even Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and the tiny state of Estonia scored better than Pakistan.

The ranking assesses each country in four categories--system strength, access, flagship institution, and economic context--combining university rankings with a range of other indicators to give a broader picture of national strengths in higher education provision and performance.

The first of the categories, “system strength”, is based on the number of institutions featured in the international rankings. The second, “access”, reflects the number of places available at internationally ranked universities. The third, “flagship institution”, assesses the performance of each country’s leading university. The fourth, “economic context”, factors performance in the global rankings against GDP per capita, to give an indication of the extent to which financial investment is translating into ranking representation.

Pakistani higher education system has been ranked at bottom  with 9.2 score  as compared to  China 83.5, South Korea 80.1, Singapore 62.3, India 60.9, Chile 46.7, Saudi Arabia 36.7, Turkey 26.1, Kazakhstan 25.1, Lebanon 19.8, Ukraine 16.6 and United Arab Emirates 10.9 scores.  The ranking is led by the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. The top five is completed by Australia and Canada with two more European entries – France and the Netherlands. The top 10 concludes with a trio of Asian representatives: China, South Korea and Japan.

Of the 50 countries included in the index, almost half (22) are in Europe. The UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, which all make the top 10, are joined in the top 20 by Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Belgium and Finland.

The leading Latin American entry is Argentina (18th), followed by Brazil (22nd), Chile (31st), Mexico (33rd) and Colombia (34th). Africa’s leading representative is South Africa (30th) while Egypt also makes the list (47th).

Published for the first time this year, this new ranking joins QS’s extensive portfolio of university rankings. Earlier, according to World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16 , under the heads of Higher Education and Training, Pakistan’s ranking is way down at 124th out of 140 countries as compared to India at 90th, Bangladesh 122nd, Nepal 113rd, China 28th, Iran 69th, Bhutan 103rd, Qatar 27th, UAE 37th and Saudi Arabia 49th.

 According to another indicator, Scopus, which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature then as per Scimago 2014 global publication data, which is a portal that includes the journals from the Scopus database, Iran ranks 16th, Turkey 19th and Malaysia 23rd (all ahead of Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Taiwan, South Africa, Israel and Singapore). Saudi Arabia ranks 35th and Pakistan 43rd.