QS National Higher Education Systems Strength Ranking

Since the release of Times Higher Education Supplement of University Rankings, we have been taking time to absorb on the outcome of that ranking. For Malaysia, it has been a pretty good year (I know there are parties who are still not happy). 4 out of 5 Malaysian universities manage to climb up on the ranking and we are getting closer to the Top 200 ranking.

This other ranking of "QS National Higher Education Systems Strength Ranking" is by QS, which is the partner with THES for the university ranking. It takes into account the university ranking and then calculate inter-country ranking, with several criteria.

And one thing that amazes us is that Malaysia is ranked 26th and Singapore is ranked marginally ahead at 25th. Syabas to our universities and hope that we can continue to further improve ourselves.

The ranking by QS is here

It ranks the nations by 4 equal weighting indicators (quoted from the website):-

System
An evaluation of the overall strength of the system based on the performance of all the intitutions from that country meeting a certain qualifying standard. More precisely, the number of institutions ranked 500 or higher, in the given country, divided by the average position of those institutions.

For System, the ranking are as follow:-
US, UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan, Netherland, France, Switzerland, Hong Kong, China, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Denmark, New Zealand, Ireland, Israel, India, Finland, Spain, Taiwan, Austria, Malaysia (26th rank).

(Malaysia is 8th in Asia)

Access
Widening participation is one of the hottest issues on the higher education agenda today. The first component of delivering against that agenda, for any given country, is having sufficient places at universities of an internationally recognised standard. This indicator is calculated based on the number of places at top 500 universities from the subject country (specifically the total number of FTE students at the universities from that country featuring in the top 500 in the THE - QS World University Rankings) divided by an indicator of population size (specifically the square root of the population).

For Access, the ranking are as follow:-
US, Australia, Italy, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, South Korea, Japan, Greece, Belgium, Finland, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Switzerland, (21st rank country is outside of top 40), Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia (25th Rank)

(Malaysia is 6th in Asia)

Flagship
There is some international debate as to whether a country with limited funds ought to dilute their funds across many institutions in a system or concentrate funds with a view to building at least one "world class university". Whether by direct investment, or by riding the wave of domestic competition, the performance of a country's leading university is a credit to the system from whence it comes. This indicator takes the form of a normalized score based on the global performance of the leading university from the country in question.

For Flagship, the ranking are as follow:-
US, UK, Australia, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Singapore, Denmark, Ireland, South Korea, 13th Rank Unidentified, Netherland, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand, Belgium, Finland, Israel, Austria, Taiwan, Mexico, India, Thailand, South Africa, Norway, Russia, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Malaysia (34th Rank)

(Malaysia is 8th in Asia. In overall, we are not strong in this area).

Economic
Not all nations, or higher education institutions within nations have access to equal funds. The strength of the country's economy is a major factor but also cultural influences that may affect factors such as industrial funding or alumni donations play a role. This indicator recognizes two key factors, firstly the relative fiscal emphasis that the given government places on higher education and secondly, the impact or effectiveness of that investment - essentially recognising performance relative to investment. The indicator takes an indexed score (5 points for a university in the top 100, 4 points for 101-200, 3 points for 201-300, 2 for 301-400 and 1 for 401-500) and factors it against the GDP per capita for the country in question.

For Economic, the ranking is as follow:-
US, India, UK, China, Germany, Japan, Australia, Philippines, Canada, Indonesia, France, Thailand, Netherlands, Brazil, 15th Rank Unidentified, Korea, Malaysia (17th Rank), Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel, Russia.

(Malaysia is 8th in Asia)

For Overall ranking, it is as follow:-
US, UK, Australia, Germany, Canada, Japan, France, Netherland, Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Ireland, Finland, Taiwan, Austria, Denmark, Thailand, Israel, India, Singapore, Malaysia (26th)

(Malaysia is 9th in Asia)

Lets hope that our universities can further be improved!

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