Is there meaning to university rankings?

To many educators in this region, it may seem ironic, indeed bewildering, that the universities enjoying the highest ranking in the Arab world are in Saudi Arabia, arguably the most conservative state in the region. In almost every ranking of universities, King Saud University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals rank first and second respectively. In some instances, Saudi Arabian institutions claim the first four or five positions.

The UAE’s national institution, the UAE University, ranks 11 in the Web Ranking of Universities, a ranking that takes into consideration the internet visibility of an institution. This 11th spot places the university before the American University in Cairo just behind Lebanon’s prestigious American University of Beirut, and ahead of Cairo University and Birzeit University among others — not too bad.

But do these rankings mean anything? Is the methodology used in developing these rankings reliable?

The answer is a guarded yes and no.

Most of the rankings of Arab universities are based on their web visibility. Some ranking agencies, such as the Spanish-based CybermetricsLab, do a more thorough job and look at the quality of entering students, faculty salaries, and student-faculty ratios. However, none go beyond that. Still, these are telling criteria.

What the rankings do not take into consideration are such things as employment records of graduating students, average salaries of alumni, retention, SAT scores, comparative admissions requirements, research grants, and other criteria normally used when comparisons are made among institutions in a single country as in, for example, the US or Great Britain.

Various criteria

In a region as wide as ours, it would be impossible, and very likely meaningless, to take these criteria into consideration, because Arab universities operate in different markets, where salaries are not commensurable, school systems differ considerably, and institutions cater to different student populations, often in different languages — Arabic, English, and French in the Maghreb or in Lebanon.

Very few Arab students entertain the idea of moving to another country to attend university, in contrast to the US or Britain, where it is very common for students to relocate to another state or region for their tertiary education.

Moreover, an indication of the limitations of these rankings is the fact that the first spots in most of them are claimed by institutions in countries where freedom of expression is the most limited.

Of the first 20 spots in CybermetricLab, six are claimed by universities in Saudi Arabia, five in the UAE, three in the Occupied Territories, and only two each in Lebanon and Egypt, arguably the more liberal of Arab states. That could very well reflect a bias in the rankings in favour of technical disciplines, such as engineering, medicine, or business studies.

That bias allows for universities where technical studies are of quality, such as King Saud University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, to claim their top rankings. While students at these institutions may be receiving a good professional education, they are not enjoying the whole university experience. What they are not getting, in the words of the 19th-century Islamic reformer Jamal Al Deen Al Afghani, is a good dose of philosophy, falsafa, or critical thinking .

“If a community does not have philosophy,” wrote Al Afghani a hundred years ago, “and all the individuals of that community are learned in the sciences with particular subjects, those sciences could not last in that community for long. That community without the spirit of philosophy could not deduce conclusions from these sciences.”

At truly reputable universities, architecture professors, say, must be able to deride the palace of the ruler or the temple named after him; an economist should be able to criticise the national budget and the fiscal policies of the government, and give examples of financial mismanagement without fear of repercussions. A fine arts professor must be able to express and explore sensualities, and the theatre instructor must take pride in transgressing social mores.

The latitude of freedom required by professors of philosophy, religion, history, and political sciences is even much greater. They may want to question the nation’s traditions, or the wisdom of its wise men, or the official interpretation of history, or the country’s political system. Where these freedoms do not exist, university education is imperfect.

If universities in the Arab world want to enjoy high international rankings, they must make freedom of thought and expression a priority for their faculty and students. Otherwise, all the money governments may pour into beautiful campuses, facilities and equipment, in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE or elsewhere, will fail to turn their institutions into truly world class centres of education — whatever the rankings might say. It is the job of universities to promote and encourage free and creative thinking, and thoughtful governments should recognise this fact.

Ramez Maluf is an associate professor at the Lebanese American University.