The University of Cape Town (UCT) remains the top university in Africa according to the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings. This year, UCT moved up two places to 198th position, placing it in the top 20% of the world’s universities.
Each year, QS uses six performance indicators to rank 1 000 institutions globally: this year’s rankings included nine from South Africa. Their indicators are academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty member, faculty-to-student ratio, international-staff ratio and international-student ratio.
The academic reputation indicator remains UCT’s strongest performer and has improved this year, both in actual score and position relative to other universities. Academic reputation, which contributes the most (40%) to an institution’s overall score, is based on a global survey of experts in higher education regarding universities’ teaching and research quality.
UCT’s employer reputation ranking, which is based on the views of employers worldwide about which institutions produce the best graduates, also improved – as it had in the 2019 and 2018 rankings.
Scores for citations (when an author’s work is referred to by other authors) per faculty member also improved, indicating a strengthening in the impact and quality of scientific work produced by UCT. Ratios for international-staff, faculty-to-student and international-students declined.
UCT has also continued to perform well in a range of subject areas. In the 2019 QS subject rankings, released in February, UCT’s development studies was ranked 9th in the world and a further eight subject areas were in the top 100: anatomy and physiology, anthropology, archaeology, architecture/built environment, education, geography, social policy and administration, and sports-related subjects.
