In international rankings, we all know that Pakistani universities don’t even come close to the top 500 mark. How about among the Muslim world?
It turns out that Pakistani universities don’t stand a chance even among universities from other Muslim countries. according to a new report. The rankings, issued by the Scientometrics Lab of Information Technology University (ITU), shows that not a single Pakistani university has made it to the top 30 universities of the Muslim world.
ITU’s Quality Research Ranking
More than 450 universities of the Muslim world were ranked in order to benchmark the research performance of these institutes across more than 250 subject areas. This included universities that were engaged in research for the purpose of strengthening the quality and impact of the same.
Coming towards the ranking, Harvard University in the United States was set as a benchmark with a score of 100. Based on this benchmark, coming in at first place with a score of 10.82, on the basis of score, was the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. At the second place is the University of Malaya in Malaysia that has score of 10.31. And finally at third place is the University of Tehran, Iran, with a score of 9.98.
The only countries that you would find in the top 20 of ranking list are Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Malaysia and Egypt. Both Iran and Turkey have 7 universities each in the top 20, Saudi Arabia has 3, with 2 Malaysian universities and 1 from Egypt.
Pakistani Universities
The first Pakistani university that comes up on the list is at the 35th position, the Quaid-e-Azam University with a score of 3.21. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology came in at 41 with a score of 2.83. Coming in at 68th position is the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad with a score of 1.89.
It should be noted here that the score of all these universities are out of 100 and even the university that is ranked first on this list, does not even come close to the universities of the non-Muslim world on the basis of any factor, be it quality, research etc. To put things into perspective, if you assume that the word’s top university has a score of 100, then the King Abdulaziz University, which is ranked 1st among the Muslim world, shows a score of just 10.82.
According to the ITU Quality Reseach Ranking, there are two types of universities – Broad and Specialized. Broad universities consist of universities that are research active in more than 8 disciplines and fields, whereas specialized universities consist of universities that are only active between 3-8 disciplines.
The above universities come in the category of broad universities. As far as the ranking for specialized universities is concerned, Pakistan grabs the 6th position with The Aga Khan University, showing a score of 3.48.
The Vice Chancellor for the Information Technology University, Dr Umar Saif said that it was unfortunate that the research output of universities could be manipulated so easily by publishing semi-legit journals, self-organized conferences and plagiarized results.
‘We need to stop this and focus on high quality research. A lot of people are doing good quality research in Pakistan so there’s nothing wrong in the enabling environment. This ranking presents a data-driven, independent and quantified yardstick on where our universities stand in terms of research output. Ranking of Pakistani universities should be a wake-up call for us .’
You can also check out the detailed report over here.
Jali teachers
Right because it’s the teachers who are responsible, not the education ministries for not funding them or the administration (VC) of universities for not spending funds wisely.
When Metro is the priority!
In provinces where Metro isn’t the priority how many of them are in the list?
Yeah, what an Irony!
I am not surprised regarding Pakistan Universities i mean what do you expect when your total Education budget is less than Metro budget.
I very well know Pakistani universities and level of their faculties. In a very known public sector university of Pakistan faculty members play online video games 14-16 hours a day. They go unprepared to lectures, they give good marks to those students who are ready to give them loans.
Another so called university (an affiliate college in fact) where half of students are armed forces officers studying without permission, without any authority they mark/grade students…phir bahti ganga..worst corruption in education sector. Our dear PTA chairman was also once teaching there. Ex- executive director HEC is shareholder, Dr. Mukhtar is supporter and has an unknown role..you can’t lodge a complaint about their wrong doings and Dr. Mukhtar will leak it.
**I am not in mood to write more details and write very well as even mentioning these people is so disgusting.
These rankings of Universities are really paid contents. 3xSaudi universities in top 20, astonishing. NUST among world 500 but unable to get place in top 20 of Muslim world.
Saudi Unies used to pay from 1.5 lack pkr to 4.5 PKr per each IF publication. They hire all the people in seconds who are capable of publishing IF papers in bluk. This ranking is majorly based only on the IF paper publications. Thats why Saudi Arabia unies have high ranks. They have hired higly paid adjunct professors and highly cited (non muslim mostly) from all over the world. They are not living in saudi arabia but they are publishing papers with names of saudi Unies.
Please do not mention NUST, I very much know their faculty.
What else would u expect when the head of institution has fake degrees (NaComsut) and the vision of the IT minister is “Hum nai Internet sasta kar diya” and “Hum nai transcription-ist produce karnay hain”. (AttaBoy)
There is no Muslim group and criteria or filter list exists outside Pakistan. Think globally.
I simply can’t accept this ranking. Pakistani universities can be behind Malaysia but not Saudi Arabia. Though I agree that our rankings are pathetic globally but in case of Muslim countries we’re better than most.
They have the money to hire best teachers and buy best equipment. So why can’t you believe it?
Do you think a full professor at some place like LUMS or FAST can easily go teach in Saudi Arabia at a university? Saudis can afford to be picky.
You have never visited Saudi universities I am very much sure. You are not aware of their foreign faculties, their facilities, syllabus and their admission criteria.
جس ملک کے ہر دوسرے شہری کو صرف اپنے پیٹ کی فکر ہو، ملک میں شریعت نافذ کرنے کی آرزو ہو اور خیالی اور خلاف عقل قصوں اور کہانیوں پر دل و جان سے یقین رکھتے ہو تو ایسے دماغ سے آپ کس قسم کی ترقی کی توقع رکھ سکتے ہیں. ترقی کے لئے ضروری ہے کہ انسان کو اپنی زندگی کو عقل اور سائنس کی رہنمائی میں گزاری جائے.
Don’t know about the merits of this ranking…Output of Pakistan in the fields of enterprise, medicine, arts, science & technology are way better than all except maybe Malaysia. More patents by Pakistanis last year than most of them put togehter. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt are way behind us in all these fields. These are the important areas in my opinion. Egypt maybe a bit ahead in output and quality of literary work produced. Thats their natural niche.
Please share source of patent information.
This ranking is based on the research output means only Impact Factor paper publications. I agree with you the teaching standards in Pakistan are way better than than of KSA. But dear they have money they hired the brain to write papers for them.
Do you know that there are government instructions in many Arab countries not to fail ANY of their
students teachers are fired if they do!
Egypt is famous for fraudulent degrees andit is popularly joked that everyone in Egypt is either a “doctor or
engineer” (doctoor or muhandes, as they are locally called).
Why are we always in such a state of wallowing and self-pity?
There is NO COMPARISON between our universities, and most Arab universities (I will not say Indonesia,
Malaysia, as they are genuinely fantastic compared to us) — some are no more than joker universities, and their graduates cannot even write one line of English, but have done their PhDs — when we investigate, we find out that they have paid someone else to write the thesis themselves – many times Indians who
lend them these services for “mutual benefits”
It is no even a matter of shame in the Arab world to do this, but in fact a matter of pride.
Like our famous CM of Balochistan once said. . . . “Degree degreehotee, aslee ho ya. . . !!”
However, I also want to add that I have been working across Europe and Americas as well as Middle East and Asia now for over 20 years, and have competed with people directly from Harvard,Wharton, Kellogg, IIM (India), Insead (France) and in almost all independent assessments done (competency and psychological assessments/testing by independent western consultants) I have beaten every single one of them, and have been rated in the top 0.8% of global executives at VP level or above, as
well as the single top talent in my company (I have worked for three # 1companies in the world).
And my start as a fresh MBA a quarter of a century ago, was from the top Pakistani University in Karachi
(its only later I went on to learning and career opportunities abroad, across the world in USA and Europe).
Its just propaganda and hype created by the west and India to try and discredit Pakistani talent and education system. Please do not mis-understand me –we are not great, but we are not as bad as we are made out to be as well.
Infact on the contrary, whenever it comes time to deliver results, even Indian managers prefer to have Pakistanis — I have seen practically, and repeatedly in my two decades experience, one Pakistani being then replaced for that same job by upto four Indians, and still unable to deliver the objectives and KPIs
set which that one Pakistani alone was achieving — so I vehemently refute questioning the quality of our youth’s talent – or even of some of the universities.
Our problem is that our best are better than anyone, anywhere in the world, including USA and Europe, but our average is pretty poo — VERY poor indeed!
Until we get rid of this dilapidated system of government nothing will happen. Pakistan has the potential to leave the rest of the world behind in dust if only we had sincere, honest leadership with integrity and moral courage.
Allah has blessed us with not just the best natural, human and processed resources in the world, but has given us the foresight to be able to use it as well.
We are just let down by Mir Jaffars every time.
If only these “big” ruling families realized that even in USA, Jeddah or Dubai their sons and future families will remain “second class citizens”, they would stop betraying Pakistan and actually make this nation what it has the potential to become.
You only realize this when you live far away from your home, like I did for most of my life!
I want to see the day when it is MANDATORY for all politicians, bureaucrats and other civil and military leaders to send their children to pubic “yellow” schools, and get treatment in local hospitals. And not carry
dual nationalities – as is not allowed anywhere else in the world!
I can GUARANTEE you we will quickly have the best healthcare and education system in the entire
world!