Nigerian universities, others missing in global employability rankings

Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu

Only four African universities are represented in the 2016 Global Employability Rankings, with the University of Cape Town in South Africa coming   at the top of the African contingent.

Leading the rankings are Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the QS Quacquarelli Symonds’ first QS Graduate Employability Rankings, while China’s Tsinghua University takes third place. Universities with a strong STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – focus, particularly those emphasising technology, rank highly.

Tsinghua’s third-place finish is one of several strong Chinese performances: Peking University ranks joint 11th, while Fudan University is 14th.

While the top 10 demonstrates both American dominance, with United States universities taking five top 10 places, there are five different nations represented in the top 10. The others are China, Australia (the University of Sydney, 4th), France (Ecole Polytechnique, 6th), and the United Kingdom (the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, 5th and 8th respectively).

The other top-10 American institutions are Columbia University (7th), the University of California, Berkeley (9th), and Princeton University (10th).

Aside from the University of Cape Town, the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa as well as the American University in Cairo and Cairo University, both in Egypt are the other three.

Latin America’s highest-ranked university is Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey (40th), while Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (45th) also places within the top 50.

Lebanon’s American University of Beirut (81-90) is the highest-ranked of six featured universities placing in the QS University Rankings: Arab Region. Universities from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are also ranked.

Source: Worlduniversitynews