The Chairman of Governing Board of Higher Education Observatory for Africa, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, has applauded the efforts of the National Universities Commission in implementing its 2021-2027 strategic plan.
According to a statement by a Ghanaian member of the Board of HEOFA, Dr. Fred Mensah, “the dividend of the NUC-led effort is the top-ranking of Nigerian universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities which was released August 15, 2022.
The PUNCH reports that ARWU is one of the most-respected ranking schemes in the world. It uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff members winning nobel prizes and field medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded, and Social Sciences Citation Index in the Web of Science, and per capita performance of a university.
Mensah notes that more than 2500 universities are ranked by ARWU every year and the best 1000 are published.
This year, Harvard University tops the ranking list for the 20th year. Stanford University remains at the number two seat. Massachusetts Institute of Technology rises one position to the number 3.
Other Top 10 universities are Cambridge (4th), Berkeley (5th), Princeton (6th), Oxford (7th), Columbia (8th), Caltech (9th), and Chicago (10th).”
HEOFA noted that “for the first time in the history of ARWU which started in 2003, University of Ibadan appeared in the 800-901 band.
“In the 2022 GRAS ranking which was also released on Monday, Nigeria featured as follows: in Veterinary Sciences, the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, emerged in the 201 to 300 group; in Dentistry and Oral Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University was also in the 201 to 300 group; while in Psychology, University of Nigeria emerged in the 401 to 500 group”.
“The chairman of the governing board of HEOFA, Okebukola, congratulated the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, the Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, as well as the authorities of the University of Ibadan, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and Obafemi Awolowo University for this feat.
“With the 2021-2027 strategic plan on ranking and the 2019-2023 blueprint on the Rapid Revitalisation of University Education in Nigeria being implemented by the NUC, the world of ranking will quake with the huge appearance of Nigerian universities in the top 200 in the world before 2030.
“I urge all stakeholders to be part of the provision of the enabling environment of better resourcing of our universities, better welfare scheme for staff to bolster motivation and enhance commitment to quality teaching and research and all in the context of a stable academic calendar in order to achieve our 2030 goal of top ranking in global league tables,” Okebukola concluded
