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Makerere ranked seventh best university in Africa
The Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu (R), leads a procession during a graduation at the institution last year. PHOTO BY FAISWAL KASIRYE.
What you need to know:
Prof John Ssentamu-Ddumba says the results are a reflection of the institution’s reputation in training the human resource on the continent.
KAMPALA
Makerere University has been ranked the best institution in East, Central and West Africa in the latest world university ranking.
The results released last week by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2014 Edition, the country’s oldest university was ranked 7th on the continent and the 891 in the world. The rankings were released in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
South Africa, Egypt and Uganda were the only African countries represented in the top 1,000 world universities ranked. The United States of America (USA) took the lion’s share, contributing 229 institutions to the top 1,000 followed by China with 84 institutions.
‘Gallant alumni’
The Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Prof John Ssentamu-Ddumba, said the results are a reflection of the institution’s reputation in training the human resource needed not only in East Africa, but on the continent.
“Makerere University has the highest number of PhD holders in the region who are actively engaged in ground-breaking research. Our gallant alumni spread the world over are recipients of a number of distinguished awards in both academia and the corporate world. We are confident that this greatly contributed to our being ranked 7th in Africa and among the top 1,000 universities worldwide,” Prof Dumba said.
According to a statement on the CWUR website, they publish the only global university ranking that measures the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research without relying on surveys and university data submissions.
Dr Vincent Ssembatya, the Makerere University director-quality assurance, welcomed the ranking saying they are going to use the results to review their curricular to meet the best practices in the world of work.
“We welcome this ranking as a great tool in the analysis of the quality of our graduates. Any assessment that considers the number of alumni who hold CEO [chief executive officer] positions is a good reflector of the employability and indeed quality of our graduates,” noted Dr Ssembatya.
“We intend to use such results to further review our curricular to best suit what is expected of us by the job market.” The University of Witwatersrand topped the continent, followed by four other South African Institutions.
Criteria
Unlike the Webometric Rankings whose biggest parameter visibility (at 50 per cent) considers the number of websites linking to the university’s domain, CWUR’s quality of education, alumni employment and quality of faculty objectives are each ranked at 25 per cent, with the remaining 25 per cent equally distributed between the publications, influence, citations, broad impact and patents objectives.
