UP makes world top 500 list

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines is now among the top 500 higher education institutions in the world, according to the latest world university rankings released by London-based Times Higher Education (THE).

The country’s only national university climbed to the 401st-500th spot, up from last year’s 501st-600th ranking, the list released yesterday showed.

UP first entered the list in 2016 at the 800+ rank, followed by a better 601st-800th performance in 2017.

Meanwhile, De La Salle University, the only other Philippine university in the list, dropped to the 1,000+ spot from last year’s 801st to 1,000th.

The rankings included 1,396 research universities from 92 countries worldwide. They are based on 13 performance indicators grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), industry income (knowledge transfer) and international outlook (staff, students and research).

Based on the results, UP improved its score in teaching (from 21.7 percent to 24.7 percent); research (16.4 percent to 17.2 percent); industry income (35.8 percent to 39.4 percent) and citations (69.1 percent to 86.9 percent).

Its performance slipped in international outlook (from 39.5 percent to 37.9 percent), which considers the number of international collaboration, students and staff.

Meanwhile, DLSU improved in teaching (from 16.7 percent to 17.1 percent), research (10.8 percent to 12.9 percent) and industry income (34 percent to 34.4 percent).

Its scores fell in citations (from 28.4 percent to 26.4 percent) and international outlook (33.7 percent to 30.7 percent)

For the fourth consecutive year, the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom led the list.

The California Institute of Technology in the United States, previously ranked third, snatched the second spot from UK’s University of Cambridge, which fell to third place. 

Following them are US-based institutions Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University and University of Chicago.

Completing the top 10 is the Imperial College London in the UK.

China’s Tsinghua University topped the universities from Asia, ranking 23rd overall, followed by China’s Peking University at 24th and the National University of Singapore (NUS) at 25th.

“Mainland China now provides both of Asia’s top two universities, with Tsinghua and Peking universities finishing at 23rd and 24th places, respectively. The country’s universities have continued to expand their influence and presence on the world stage,” the THE said.

“The US is, once again, extremely well-represented among the global elite, while Canada’s top universities have risen up the table,” it added. 

Among tertiary institutions in Southeast Asia, only the NUS, the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (48th) and the University of Malaya in Malaysia (301st-350th) ranked higher than UP.

Lower budget

Despite this positive development, UP will get lower budget next year amid the government’s crackdown on reported recruitment of students by the New People’s Army (NPA) and its alleged front organizations in the premier state university.

From P17 billion this year, the appropriation for the UP System has been reduced to P15.4 billion for 2020, a cut of P1.6 billion or 9.4 percent.

This was bared during the budget briefing yesterday by the House appropriations panel on the proposed budget for state universities and colleges (SUCs).

In the proposed appropriation under the budget of the Commission on Higher Education, SUCs will get P64.866 billion for 2020 – an increase of only P155 million or 0.24 percent from its budget for this year.

Recently, the Department of the Interior and Local Government asked for a dialogue with the autonomous administration of UP, students, the military and the police over the reported recruitment strategies by the NPA.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, a retired chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said some student organizations at UP have been “infiltrated” by communist rebels.

Groups like the League of Filipino Students, where the Communist Party of the Philippines has supposed “corresponding branches,” need to be monitored, according to Año. – With Edu Punay