ST Aug 16, 2006
Newsweek ranks NUS 31st in the world
NTU at No. 71 on its online list of world's top varsities
By Liaw Wy-Cin
A NEW global league table of universities compiled by international magazine Newsweek has ranked the National University of Singapore (NUS) 31st in the world.
In its latest issue, Newsweek put NUS ahead of top institutions like Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, one of the United States' so-called Ivy League colleges, and the prestigious Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
US universities made an almost clean sweep of the top 10, though the sixth and eighth positions went to Britain's famous Cambridge and Oxford universities.
Top spot went to Harvard. Stanford was second and Yale, third.
The double issue of the magazine ranked the top 50 universities worldwide. Its online version, which lists the top 100, placed Nanyang Technological University (NTU) 71st.
NUS, however, was not the top Asian university. That honour went to The University of Tokyo, which came in at 14th. Kyoto University bagged 25th spot.
NUS president, Professor Shih Choon Fong, said the latest ranking was a recognition of the university's 'pursuit of excellence in education and research'.
He said: 'This is a call to further raise Singapore's reputation and visibility in the global education landscape.'
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Technorati: Singapore; education; universities.
16 comments:
The article lists NUS at 36.
They did not include the abandance of cute NUS guys for evaluation?
We could climb 30 odd places for that.
Hmmmm, how did they do the ranking of these universities?
I always like the way how the MSM spin this whole thing. We don't look at who we lost to, but usually who we beat. :)
Speaking of which, where is our other resident Small Medium University?
The ranking is for Most Global Universities, so for NUS to have a fair showing is reasonable, given the extensive linkages and collaborations the SG government forges, and the aggressive recruitment of internationals to join the student body as well as faculty.
From the article:
"In response to the same forces that have propelled the world economy toward global integration, universities have also become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire spec trum of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an inter connected world and collaborative research programs to advance science for the benefit of all humanity. To capture these developments, NEWSWEEK devised a ranking of global universities that takes into account openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research.
We evaluated schools on some of the measures used in well-known rankings published by Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Times of London Higher Education Survey. Fifty percent of the score came from equal parts of three measures used by Shanghai Jiatong: the number of highly-cited researchers in various academic fields, the number of articles published in Nature and Science, and the number of articles listed in the ISI Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities indices. Another 40 percent of the score came from equal parts of four measures used by the Times: the percentage of international faculty, the percentage of international students, citations per faculty member (using ISI data), and the ratio of faculty to students. The final 10 percent came from library holdings (number of volumes)."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14321230/site/newsweek/
Nice spin on the NUS web page:
"NUS amongst top three global universities in Asia"
Interestingly, the table of rankings for the Times Higher Education Supplement does have the proper numbering, ie. 10,11,11,13,14 instead of 12,13,13,13,14,14,15
http://newshub.nus.edu.sg/headlines/0511/ranking_nov05.htm
So NUS is using two conflicting numbering systems within its own web page.
Judge worldwide universities by the real world achievements of its alumni and NUS and NTU would not have such comfortable rankings.
The education system overly emphasizes on rankings, on whose position is in relation to others' position in order to justify its superiority.
It often lacks to take account of the welfare of the people after they have graduated from the system.
It doesn't matter how many PhDs, As or A1s a learning institution produces, as long as they impart the skills to the students to put their knowledge into good use in society and their life as alumni.
Otherwise, what is the point of education, other than to score points on paper but to suffer unfulfillment in working life?
I see NUS and NTU in an awkward position against the "foreign talents" in the list.
NUS and NTU need to tutn its students into the calibre of foreign talents so that Singapore can be more self-sustaning, less stagnant and more progressive.
"This post has been removed by a blog administrator."
Whoa, I think that's the first act of censorship I've seen by Mr. Wang! (Was it a highly abusive post, or?)
"This post has been removed by a blog administrator."
This is the first time I've seen this on a blog ever!
It was spam by Lee Hsien Tau, who recently posted the same long comment (about his personal life) on SIX of my most recent posts.
The comment I deleted is completely irrelevant to my post about NUS; just as his previous comment on all six of my posts was completely irrelevant to all six posts.
Basically Lee Hsien Tau has been having some serious legal troubles for a few years now, and he frequently goes around the Internet especially to popular blogs to post comments to attract people to his own blog.
He first appeared on my blog about one year ago, and I already gave him my looooooong opinion on his troubles.
Mr Wang
Is this Mr Lee Hsien Tau in any way related to you know Mr Lee Hsien L.... and Mr Lee Hsien Y....?
Of course this is just a joke to start off the morning ;)
Will this be another excuse to raise school fees? Anyway school fees are slated to increase annually by 5% IIRC.
NUS should be world-class because it gives local students global recognition, rather than giving global students local recognition.
What's the use of it being a world-class university when it caters to non-Singaporeans?
Isn't it striking if you read the newsweek rankings that Switzerland has the second largest (after the US) number of top global universities??? Ahead of France, Germany, Italy, the UK?? Yet, the number of Swiss Nobelists is diminishingly small. The fine print is that the rankings were for "Global Universities" i.e. in small countries with large numbers of foreign faculty or students or the US which is a magnet for both.
Mr Wang, where can I find your looooooong opinion?
Mr Wang, refering to the
"It was spam by Lee Hsien Tau, who recently posted the same long comment (about his personal life) on SIX of my most recent posts."
PTC date set at 27 Sep at 2.00pm.
Need your input on Town Councils Act pronto. And I need direction to the loooooong opinion you were refering to. This is no spam.
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