Photo by: Duane Daws
Four of South Africa’s universities have made it into the top 500 institutions recognised in the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities undertaken by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The rankings, which focus primarily on the quality of scholarship at universities, ranked the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in the top 201 to 300 universities, an improvement on a ranking in the 301 to 400 category last year, to join the University of Cape Town (UCT), which maintained its previous ranking.
Stellenbosch University (SU) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) ranked in the top 401 to 500 category.
The Center for World-Class Universities ranked Harvard University number one in the world for the twelfth year. Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Berkeley, University of Cambridge, Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, University of Chicago and University of Oxford were the other top ten universities.
Last month, Wits was ranked the top university in Africa – 114th worldwide – by the Center for World University Rankings, which emphasised the quality of the graduates produced by universities.
The UCT, SU and the UKZN also ranked number two, three and four respectively in Africa, and 267, 311 and 459 worldwide. The University of Pretoria secured a ranking of five in Africa and 609 worldwide.
“This is a clear demonstration of the strength of the South African higher education system and our congratulations go to these institutions,” Wits said in a statement.
Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Cambridge and Oxford had also secured top spots in the Center for World University Rankings.