The University of Nairobi is the only Kenyan university to appear in the recently released report by the Centre for World University Ranking (CWUR) that ranked 2000 universities globally. Four major parameters guide this ranking – first is the quality of education at 25 percent; two is the employability of its graduates at 25 percent; three is quality of faculty at 10 percent and four is the research performance at 40 percent and the heaviest of the four parameters. In the CWUR ranking list, Harvard University of the USA, which occupied 8 out of 10 top positions in the ranking, is at position one for twelve years in a row, with 100 percent, Cambridge and Oxford universities in the United Kingdom, are ranked fourth and fifth position respectively. UK had 2 of its institutions appearing in the top ten list, and hence the top ten universities were dominated by universities from the United States of America and UK, with the US having over 332 other universities in the 2000 list.
The university of Nairobi is ranked number 1425th in the 2023 edition of the Global 2000 list, after scoring 68.2 percent out of 100 percent. Regionally, University of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia was ranked position 862 and Makerere university in Uganda was ranked position 950. This essentially places the University of Nairobi in the top 7 percent position globally, though much more needs to be done. In Africa, Egypt had the highest number of its universities featuring in the list with 20 of its universities featuring, South Africa had 12, Nigeria had 4 and Ghana had 2.
University of Nairobi in 2023 ranking dropped 20 places from the previous year ranking, because of under performance in the key performance indicators namely – unemployability of its graduates and low research outputs to the global knowledge industry among others. This calls for strong public sector-industry-private sector and academia collaborations in teaching and research.
Three major university management approaches can be used to improve the ranking. First, apply incentives that includes carrying out adequate, timely and quality interdisciplinary research and teaching. Secondly, attract and retain the best faculty through effective hiring, training, orientation, evaluation, promotion and separation when necessary. Thirdly, change the nature of operations of universities through cutting the red tape and bureaucracy in university management, accessible leadership, clarity between administrative and academic roles, and getting good university councils and management Dr. Mutegi Giti, Urban management, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) & Environment Specialist. mutegigiti@gmail.com, @DanielGiti.
Dr. Daniel Mutegi Giti 