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Three Asian universities among top 30 schools for 1st time: Rankings

Three Asian universities among top 30 schools for 1st time: Rankings Campus of the National University of Singapore pictured on Jan. 23, 2016. (Shutterstock/File)
News Desk (Kyodo News)
London   ●   Wed, September 6, 2017 2017-09-06 16:37 2395 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97af82af1 2 News university,#university,Education,#education Free

Three Asian universities made it into this year's top-30 schools for the first time in an influential ranking of the world's best-performing 1,000 universities released Tuesday.

The National University of Singapore moved up two places from last year to joint 22nd, its highest ever rank, while China's Peking University climbed two spots to joint 27th and Tsinghua University five spots to 30th, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Britain's Oxford University once again topped the annual rankings, now in their 14th year, with the University of Cambridge in second place for the first time. The California Institute of Technology and Stanford University of the United States were joint third.

The University of Tokyo, Japan's number one institution, fell seven places to 46th, its lowest rank ever, with researchers pointing to it having a lower proportion of PhDs, a worsening student-staff ratio and research productivity due to a drop in funding.

Kyoto University came in joint 74th, up 17 places since last year, making it Japan's second highest ranked institution. A total of 71 Japanese institutions were on this year's list, 14 of which were new entrants.

Read also: UGM tops RI university ranking

Phil Baty, editorial director for global rankings at Times Higher Education, said in a statement, "The rise of China in this year's table is remarkable and demonstrates the way the global higher education landscape is changing." He noted two Chinese schools were listed in the top-30 representatives for the first time.

"East Asian countries outside of China will need to work hard to stay stable as its neighbor soars to join the global elite," Baty said.

The editorial director said the University of Tokyo's continued decline in the rankings is "a worrying trend" and called on the institution to "diversify its funding streams to remain a key global player in higher education."

Over half of Japanese universities' annual revenue comes from government expenditure but national funding for higher education institutions declined by 12 percent between 2004 and 2015, researchers said.

The rankings measure teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.