After the Quackquarelli Symonds university ranking for the year 2023 published in June last, comes the Times Higher Education (THE) university ranking. Just released, the THE ranking has certainly been a mixed bag of good and bad tidings. It is good because the country's premier highest seat of learning the University of Dhaka (DU) has improved its ranking by a wide margin with the QS ranking. It has been placed in the 601-800 slot as against the QS ranking tier of 801-1,000 which is last but two tiers. Another remarkable development is the placement of the North South University (NSU), a private university, in the same league as that of the DU.
While this is celebratory for the country's higher study to some extent, the fact that no other public university like the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), let alone any private university, could make it to this somewhat improved band is disheartening. The BUET, the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) and the Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) came up for reckoning of ranking in the last level of 1,200-1,500 but no other university featured in the recognised tiers covering 1,500 higher seats of learning out of 1,799 considered.
Thus it is intriguing to note that both the DU and the BUET were placed in the 801-1,000 group in the QS ranking index but now the DU has elevated its position in the THE rankings and the BUET slipped into the last tier. Similarly, the Brac University and the NSU were in the 1,001-1,200 bracket in the QS ranking but now the spectacular leap by the NSU into the 600+ tier and Brac's absence from the list of 1,500 are simply confounding. Is there any problem in the process of gathering and supplying information from either of the ends?
Both QS and THE have calibrated performance indicators that measure performances of an institution across six and four areas respectively. In case of QS, these are academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio and international faculty ratio. In case of the THE, these are teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
Essentially there is no difference between the criteria set by the two ranking systems. Although, there is no mention of research in the QS performance indicators, in reality it is even more specific where it mentions citations per faculty. By this it measures the quality of university research with specific citation of individual faculty metric. Thus the total number of research papers produced by a university is taken into cognisance in a five-year period.
Therefore the question arises, how the DU could improve its position in the THE ranking and more importantly the NSU which was in the last but one QS reckoned tier, did make such a giant leap. Both have prepared their respective ranking for the year 2023 and should have collected the latest information. In this task, the THE has an advantage of at least four months. In such a short time, no university can make the ranking gains as the two did unless, of course, they made preparation earlier for implementation of a number of calibrated indicators.
If this happens, it is surely a cause for jubilation. In this connection, let it be noted that the DU is going to arrange a research and publication fair, first of its kind in the history of the university, on October 22 and 23. This initiative has the potential of taking the premier university further ahead in the days to come. Here will be an opportunity for the country's industries and corporate world to exchange views with the academics and researchers. Collaboration between the industrial/commercial sectors and the academia can expedite research and innovation suiting to the country's special need. Hopefully, the industrial sector will be keen to invest in such collaborative ventures.
Next comes the transfer of knowledge and student, faculty exchange programmes with universities abroad. On these counts, the public universities' performance is poor. If the private universities have limitations in garnering investment from the industrial sector, they have the advantage of scoring high by recruiting teachers including those retired particularly of Bangladesh origin, who teach or had taught in elite universities in the developed world.
However, the most important issue is to generate knowledge through research studies and innovate through experiments and further research. Submission of substandard papers in indistinguishable journals instead of producing quality papers for esteemed ones can help career promotion but does not add to knowledge. This is the area that demands focus. The recruitment of teachers has to be based on scholarships to further the knowledge of the faculty concerned or the research results have to positively influence or contribute to the lives of common people in order to make a difference.
The country lags far behind its close Asian neighbours let alone the leading Asian nations such as China, Singapore and Japan in terms of university rankings. Its universities must set targets for small but specific improvements for a period of time and build on the gains. But this needs far greater investment and the budgetary allocation on research should be raised manifold for the purpose.