Makerere University ranked the 7th best in Africa, Improves on Global standing

By Keneth Niwamanya

Despite persistent afflictions at the institution, Makerere University has improved its rank on African continent as the most reputable university in East and central Africa and the world at large according to The Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR).

The Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) publishes the only global university ranking that measures the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research without relying on surveys and university data submissions in addition to providing authoritative global university and provision of consulting services to governments and educational institutions who aspire to achieve world-class standards.

Makerere alternated from 869^th   in 2015 to the 846^th position of 1,000 universities ranked in 2016. In 2014, Makerere was ranked 891^st.

In Uganda, Makerere is the only University that features in the first 1,000 universities in the world and has kept its seventh position on African Continent. It remains the best outside South Africa and Egypt.

However in 2015, Thompson Reuter corporation ranked Makerere in the ninth position, South Africa taking the first six universities with the University of Cape town in the first place, followed by  the University of Witwatersrand, University of Stellenbosch taking the third, University of Pretoria the fourth, University of Kwazul-Natal the fifth, and lastly the University of Johannesburg. Egypt had the seventh and eighth rankings being the University of Cairo and Ain Shams University respectively.

In 2016 CWUR ranked the University of Witwatersrand as Africa's finest at 176^th position the world; University of Cape Town second at 265^th; Stellenbosch University third at 329^th; University of KwaZulu-Natal fourth at 468th; University of Pretoria fifth at 697^th position while Egypt's Cairo University comes in at number six in Africa and 771^st out of the top 1,000.

Egypt's Ain Shams University at 960^th; Mansoura University at 985^th; and Alexandria University at 995^th complete Africa's top ten and the continent's only universities in the top 1,000.

The ranking considers eight indicators with quality of education, alumni employment and quality of faculty being the most prominent, each taking 25 percent. The other indicators are; influence, broad impact, citations, publications and patent each taking five percent.

A total of 224 Universities among the top 1,000 are from the US while 90 are from China, 74 from Japan, 65 from the United Kingdom, 56 from Germany, 48 from France, 48 from Italy, 41 from Spain, 36 from South Korea, 32 from Canada, 27 from Australia and Africa as a continent has only 10, South Africa dominating with 6, Egypt 3 and Uganda with only 1.

United States' Harvard University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology transcend the list followed by UK's University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford that are ranked fourth and fifth respectively. United States' Columbia University, University of California Berkley, University of Chicago, Princeton University, and Yale University complete the top ten list in that ordain.