Strathmore among top 20 best global varsities

By Standard Reporter

Strathmore University is the only local university ranked among the best 20 global institutions, according to a latest report.

It came in at 12, followed by the University of Nairobi, which took position 22, up from 25 last July.

South Africa’s University of Cape Town is the highest ranked in Africa and 359 in the world, says the latest ranking of universities by Webometrics, carried out last month.

The top seven universities, as well as those that ranked nine and 11 in Africa, are South African.

The American University in Cairo and Cairo University are in positions eight and ten.

Highest ranked

Kenyan universities improved in their world ranking between July and January.

Strathmore rose from position 4,780 to 2,404, while Nairobi improved from position 4,338 to 4,046.

Other Kenyan universities in Africa’s top 100 are Egerton at position 50, Jomo Kenyatta at 82, Kenyatta at 84, and Moi at 86.

Of the world’s top 200 universities, 123 are North American.

Europe comes in a very second with 61 universities, while the Asia-Pacific has 14.

The highest ranked university outside the US is the University of Toronto at 25.

At position 27, Cambridge University, England, is the highest ranked university outside North America. At position 44, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico is the highest ranked university in the non-English speaking world.

Ranked separately are the top 1,500 business schools in the world.

In Kenya, only Strathmore Business School at position 768, and the Kenya Institute of Management at position 915, feature.

The ‘Web Metrics Ranking of World Universities’ is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientÌficas, the largest public research body in Spain.

Mr Isidro Aguillo, co-ordinator of the ranking, believes the size of the North American advantage points to a digital divide between regions that cannot be explained simply as a question of resources.

"We often talk about a digital divide between the rich and the poor — so American universities score higher than African universities," he says, "but the rankings reveal a divide between the rich and the rich, and this is not a matter of resources, it is a matter of leadership in the Internet."

"In Spain, for example, online university libraries tend to be little more than databases," says Aguillo.

"In the US, they are much, much more and include things like reading lists and other things which facilitate students’ work, so they do not have to visit the library to get what they need."