Credit: QS World University Rankings

QS, the leading global career and education network, released the 2011 Asian University rankings with mostly universities from Hong Kong and Japan occupying the spots for best universities in the top 10. The rankings were based on Academic Peer Review (index), Recruiter Review, Student Faculty Ratio, Bibliometrics (Papers per Faculty and Citations per Paper), and International Factors (proportion of international students).

It is quite sad to see that the highest the Philippines could place is at no. 62. Thanks to the University of the Philippinesthat ranked fairly high in all 5 essential academic areas: Arts and Humanities (no. 20), Engineering and Technology (no. 63), Social Sciences and Management (no. 27), Natural Sciences (no. 39), Life Sciences and Medicine (no. 37). As you can see, our top Philippine university was rated high on Arts and Humanities, but very low on Engineering and Technology. This actually shows the areas our schools/universities in the country should focus more on improving.

There are only 4 Philippine universities that managed to be in the top 200 Asian Universities. Here they are with their rankings:

63 – University of the Philippines (UP)
65 – Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU)
104 – University of Santo Tomas (UST)
107 – De La Salle University (DLSU)

I looked at the rankings of the top 4 Philippine universities according to the 5 essential academic areas and found that, even though De La Salle University is the 4th best in the country, it actually ranked better than University of Santo Tomas in four of the five academic aspects. The only area that UST was much better that DLSU was on Life Sciences and Medicine.

Arts and Humanities:
20 – University of the Philippines
29 – Ateneo de Manila University
59 – De La Salle University
103 – University of Santo Tomas

Engineering and Technology:
63 – University of the Philippines
89 – Ateneo de Manila University
113 – De La Salle University
157 – Mapua Institute of Technology
170 – University of Santo Tomas

Social Sciences and Management:
27 – University of the Philippines
46 – Ateneo de Manila University
79 – De La Salle University
136 – University of Santo Tomas

Natural Sciences:
38 – Ateneo de Manila University
39 – University of the Philippines
98 – De La Salle University
104 – University of Santo Tomas
151 – University of San Carlos

Life Sciences and Medicine:
37 – University of the Philippines
61 – University of Santo Tomas
64 – Ateneo de Manila University
74 – De La Salle University
158 – Silliman University
174 – Xavier University
177 – Saint Louis University
195 – University of San Carlos

The most interesting part of the rankings is the inclusion of other Philippine universities in the top 200 when each areas are analyzed individually. The “Arts and Humanities” and the “Social Sciences and Management” are dominated by the top 4. However, Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT) beat University of Santo Tomas (UST) in “Engineering and Technology” by placing 4th, and UST moved to 5th.

In it also very important to note that the University of San Carlos in Cebu appeared twice in the top 200 in specific areas such as “Natural Sciences” (no. 151) and “Life Sciences and Medicine” (no. 195).

Among the 5 areas in consideration, it looks like the “Life Sciences and Medicine” is what the Philippines is good at, with 8 universities entering the top 200 in Asia. Apart from the top 4, Silliman University (no. 158), Xavier University (no. 174), Saint Louis University (no. 177), and University of San Carlos (no. 195) were rated as best universities in “Life Sciences and Medicine” in the country.

Should we rejoice with this current rankings? Not at all. Placing at no. 63 is not good enough. Also, we have so many universities in the country that are not even listed in the 200+, which means they are below the quality of education that is worthy of international recognition.

There are still more work to do to improve our education system!

What do you think of the rankings?