Asian universities playing catch-up in annual global rankings

要約

Asian universities are gaining on their Western counterparts, according to the recently released Times Higher Education rankings. The annual evaluations of world universities found Asian universities doing better than ever before in the annual global rankings. Japan had 16 universities in the top 400, with the University of Tokyo ranking first in Asia, Kyoto University sixth, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Osaka University and Tohoku University coming in 10th, 11th and 12th.

All of that is good news for students in Japan and throughout Asia, not to mention the societies where they will eventually live and work. Clearly, drives toward improving universities by investing in them have started to bear fruit. Universities in Singapore and China, as well as in South Korea and Australia, have started to move up the rankings. That progress has been steady over the past decade, but gains could be swept away if education budgets are pared back or if economies remain stalled.

The best showings in Asia were in the areas of science, health, engineering and technology. Asian universities did not fare so well in arts and humanities or social sciences. Perhaps the results of investment take more time to show in those areas, but also the issue of language continues to hold back some Asian countries in these areas. Publishing research papers in English has become the world standard, so efforts to improve the level of learning in English must be more fully supported.

What Asia’s rise reveals is that investing in education pays off, not just in moving up the rankings, but in what skills, knowledge and understanding students acquire. Over the past decade, almost all Asian universities have expanded their investment in education. This is a trend that should be encouraged.

日本語の抄訳はウィークリ10月27日号のP18に掲載されています。