Only UP makes it to HEI world rankings

MANILA, Philippines — With just one Philippine university landing in a world ranking for higher education institutions (HEIs), Sen. Francis Escudero said that stronger efforts must be exerted by local universities to be recognized among the world’s best.

In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, only the University of the Philippines (UP) managed to make it to the list, climbing up to the 601-800 range with an overall score of 30.6 out of 100.

“I commend UP for advancing in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. However, this is dismal since no other Philippine university entered the global rankings. This only goes to show that even the Philippines’ leading universities are struggling in the global arena,” said Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on education, culture and arts.

Escudero noted that the government has moved to provide all Filipinos access to higher education through the Free Tertiary Education Act.

Now the challenge is for the HEIs  to strive for excellence and work to improve the current state of education in the country.

“The country’s education system is facing two crises: accessibility and quality. As we struggle to provide universal access to education, now that we have the free higher education law, we should not lose sight of quality so that our universities will be at par with global elite schools,” Escudero said.

The Times Higher Education World Rankings listed the top 1,000 universities from 77 countries around the globe. The scores are based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators covering teaching, knowledge transfer, research as well as international outlook.

The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom topped the world ranking, followed by the University of Cambridge.

The California Institute of Technology came in third together with Stanford University. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked 5th followed by Harvard University (6th), Princeton University (7th), the Imperial College London (8th) and the University of Chicago (9th). The ETH-Zurich-Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and the University of Pennsylvania shared the 10th spot.

The National University of Singapore, which placed 22nd along with the University of Toronto, emerged at the top of the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings, followed by Peking University (2nd) and Tsinghua University (3rd).

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore ranked 4th while the University of Hong Kong ranked 5th.

The University of the Philippines was in the 201-250 bracket based on the Asia University Rankings.