T

he National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University, also of Singapore, still top Asia’s higher education institutions, while Tsinghua University is top fifth among China’s rising institutions in Asia, the latest QS World University Rankings reported on Tuesday.

The University of Indonesia (UI), ranked 358th, is still higher than the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), ranked 431st in the world. Both increased their positions from last year’s Asia list — UI ranks 67th this year compared to 79th last year and ITB ranks 86th this year compared to 122nd last year.

Indonesian institutions fared much worse than neighbors in Malaysia and Thailand.

Chulalongkorn University earned 252nd followed by Mahidol University at 283rd.

In Asia’s top 30, the University of Malaya ranks 27th while NUS remains 12th worldwide as Asia’s leading institution.

The reputable rankings surveyed 350 higher education institutions in Asia, among over 900 around the world.

The report, issued Tuesday, concluded that “investment in higher education — either public or private — is a key differentiating factor between this year’s risers [South Korea, Russia, the US and China] and fallers [Western and Southern Europe, South Africa and Latin America]”.

The surveyors said, “China continues to progress, with Tsinghua [24th] rising to its highest ever position.”

In the global top 50, the report said “Tsinghua is joined by Peking University [both in Beijing]
which climbs two places to 39th, and Fudan University [in Shanghai], which climbs eight positions to 43rd” compared to the previous survey.

The QS head of research, Ben Sowter, was quoted as saying
that “[…] institutions and systems with consistent or improving
funding are gaining ground, whilst those being squeezed are losing out”.

As if reflecting economic conditions, “Western European institutions consistently suffer drops, particularly the UK and Germany.”

However, “even amidst ongoing concerns about university funding and student debt”, higher education institutions in the US
still had 48 institutions in the top 200. “This is also the first time
 since the inaugural 2004/2005 edition that US universities have occupied all three top spots,” the release said.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Harvard University are the world’s top three institutions.

The ranking assesses performance across surveys of almost 75,000 academics on universities’ academic reputations, student-to-faculty ratio research, citations of research and employer reputation.

QS also ranked institutions according to their best performance and reputation by subject. For arts and design, for instance, the top three in Asia are HongKong PolyU School of Design, Tsinghua University and NUS.

For business and management, the world’s top three are Harvard, London Business School and
INSEAD. For civil and structural engineering, the world’s top three areMIT, the University of Cambridge and NUS.

In Asia, the report noted an “upwards momentum” across Asia’s leading higher education hubs. Three of seven surveyed Hong Kong institutions are in the top 50. “Both South Korea and Malaysia see their leading institutions continue to climb, and — after several years of decline — there’s a more positive picture […] for Japan […]with 14 of the top 20 Japanese universities moving up.”
______________________________________________

Asia’s Top 10 Universities

1. National University of Singapore
2. The University of Hong Kong
3. Nanyang Technological University
4. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
5. Tsinghua University
6. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
7. City University of Hong Kong
8. The Chinese University of Hong Kong
9. Peking University
10. Seoul National University

Source: QS World University Rankings 2016/2017