University rankings are unscientific and bad for education – Expert

An expert says the case whereby universities are ranked by some influential ranking organisations like Times Higher Education (THE), and Shanghai Ranking Consultancy is bad for the educational system and also unscientific.

In a data gathered with colleagues, he said that there is a conceptual problem with university rankings adding that it makes no sense for the so-called influential university rankers to put all institutions in one basket and come up with something useful.

“We also concluded that their methods are unclear and some seem to be invalid. We would not accept research with poor methods for publication yet somehow rankers can get away with sloppy methods,” they said in their report.

Citing that the ranking agencies are private for-profit companies and make money in various ways, the experts also noted that rankings were massively overvalued, and reinforced global, regional and national inequalities

In a related development, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings has maintained the University of Cape Coast (UCC) as the best tertiary institution in Ghana and West Africa for the year 2024 academic year.

This is the third time in succession the UCC has been adjudged the best university in Ghana, best in West Africa, 4th best in Africa and the best university globally for research influence according to the 2022 and 2023 rankings.

Despite slipping from the 4th to the 7th position in the Africa ranking, the Cape Coast-based University has been able to maintain its number spot in Ghana and West Africa in the 2024 rankings.

A total of 1,902 universities, countries and regions were included in the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The table is based on Times Higher Education 2024 ranking’s new WUR 3.0 methodology, which includes 18 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

In the 2024 rankings, 2,673 institutions submitted data with 411,789 data points collected. In all, over a hundred and thirty-four (134) million citations were analysed across 16.5 million research publications which included a global survey response from 68,402 scholars.

The Times Higher Education World Universities Ranking is trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments, and industry experts, the 2024 league table reveals how the global higher education landscape is shifting.