World university rankings and Bangladesh

Very recently our educational quality has become a controversial issue. Therefore, many of the public and private universities have established an Institutional Quality Assurance Cell as an offshoot of the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Projectof the government.
Certainly, this is a good effort by the government in the first instance. Obviously, the university itself must articulate the quality culture and practices from a point of view of their own institutional perspectives.
It is to be noted that at present the World University Ranking status of a university is considered as a quality education indicator by the international community.
Recently, the results of the World University Rankings 2020 conducted by Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds have been announced, where, THE has included 1396 universities in their ranking list from 92 countries while QS has ranked 1002 universities. Overview of these rankings is given below incorporating the status of Bangladeshi universities.
In 2020 edition of the THE rankings, the University of Oxford obtained the top position for the fourth consecutive year. Let us see the number of universities from a few Asian countries such as, India 56, Pakistan 14, Nepal 1, Sri Lanka 2, Malaysia 13, Singapore 2, and Bangladesh 1.
We are proud of the University of Dhaka, the only university from Bangladesh obtained a position in the THE rankings.
Despite the above mentioned rankings, other prominent rankings are: THE Impact rankings and QS Graduate Employability rankings. Usually, our meritorious students who seek to study abroad search for the ranking status of their desired universities for making a decision for their admissions and scholarships. By the by, there are plenty of examples of outstanding performances in both academic and research avenues of Bangladeshi students in renowned universities worldwide.The methodologies and evaluation criteria of THE rankings are: Teaching 30% which includes reputation survey 15%, staff to student ratio 4.5%, Doctorate to bachelor's ratio 2.25%, Doctorates awarded to academic staff ratio 6%, and Institutional income 2.25%; Research 30% which includes reputation survey 18%, research income 6%, research productivity in terms of number of Scopus indexed publications in a particular duration 6%, Citations in terms of research influence 30%; International outlook 7.5% which includes proportion of international students 2.5%, proportion of international staff 2.5%, and international collaborations 2.5%; and Industry income 2.5%.
THE has put more weight on research and citations. For THE rankings, the participating university must have 1000 Scopus Indexed publications in the previous five years prior to the assessment year. Scopus has the largest abstract and citation database in the world owned by ELSEVIER.
Among 45 public and 103 private universities in Bangladesh, only three public universities can fulfill the requirement of 1000 Scopus publications at present. As per Scopus database viewed on 30 October 2019,these are University of Dhaka, BUET and Rajshahi University. It is a good news that a number of public and private universities can fulfill the above mentioned requirement of THE hopefully in a couple of years. These are Bangladesh Agriculture University, University of Chittagong, Jahangirnagar University, SUST, KUET, Khulna University, BRAC University, North South University, RUET, Daffodil International University, United International University, East West University, and American International University Bangladesh. The increasing trend of yearly Scopus publications of these universities is very encouraging. It is worth mentioning that Scopus takes into account the total and yearly publications of a university, research collaborations, author profiles, cite score (impact factor) of the indexed journals, h- index of an author, latest areas of research in a particular discipline, etc. Further, Scopus provides a very good platform for research networking with the faculty of renowned universities in the world.
Now, let us have a look at the total number of Scopus publications of a few top ranked universities in the 2020 THE ranking list. For example: University of Oxford 274069, Cambridge University 266766, California Institute of Technology 140920, Harvard University 523468, MIT 250544. On the other hand, examples of Scopus publications of lowest ranked universities are: Tribhuban University, Nepal 3998; University of Technology, Iraq 3031; Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil 5685. It is worth mentioning that citations of these publications carry 30% weight in THE rankings. Scopus publications of University of Dhaka and BUET are 7349 and 6860 respectively which are far more than the above mentioned lowest ranked universities.
Among 1002 universities in the 2020 QS world University Rankings list, BUET and University of Dhaka obtained a position in the range of 801-1000.The top five universities are MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, and Caltech. The assessment methodology of QS World University Rankings  are: academic reputation 40%, employer reputation 20%, faculty student ratio 20%, citations per faculty 20%which is calculated as citations across a five year period by the number of faculty members at that institution, international faculty ratio 5% and international student ratio 5%. However, methodology of QS Asia University Rankings is somewhat different. These are: academic reputation 30%, employer reputation 20%, faculty student ratio 10%, research 25% which includes frequency 5%, citations 10% & research networking 10%, international faculty ratio 2.5%, international student ratio 2.5%, inbound exchange student 2.5%, and outbound exchange student 2.5%. In the last year's QS Asia University Rankings,two public and four private universities of Bangladesh obtained a position. They are University of Dhaka, BUET, BRAC University, North South University, United International University and Daffodil International University. If we look at the assessment criteria of THE and QS rankings, we discover that they fall under the three important Quality Education indicators such as Teaching, Research and Internationalization. Now the question is: should we ignore the world university ranking endeavours?
The above data of Scopus publications of a number of universities in Bangladesh, and ranking methodology of Times Higher Education and QS indicate that a good number of universities may have the opportunity to be on the World University Ranking lists every year and in the years to come.  In this regard, attention may be given on the following issues. (i) A dedicated team headed by a senior faculty to oversee ranking matters (ii) Impose emphasis on quality research publications and adopt it as promotion criteria of the teachers (iii) PhD researchers of a university should publish at least one quality paper in a peer reviewed quality journal (indexed with Scopus, ISI, Web of Sciences, etc.) (iv) Selected private universities which have good records of quality research and publications should have opportunity/ right for offering a PhD. The quality of PhD may be judged directly from quality of journal publications made by the PhD candidate (v) Allocation of substantial budget for doing research and publications and offering incentives to faculty members at each university (vi) Allocation of budget for research and publications for both public and private universities by the Government/ UGC (vii) Provision of rewards for outstanding research outcomes/contributions and publications by the Government/UGC (viii) Promote research collaboration and establish research networking among faculty members of national and overseas universities. It may contribute to enhance academic reputation of a university (ix) Increase international outlook by conducting inbound and outbound faculty and students exchange programs and appointing international faculty members (x) Promote collaboration with employers for development of a need based curriculum/ syllabus to fulfill demand of theemployers (xi) Initiative for national ranking of the universities by the Government/ UGC. Non-government initiative for university ranking should be discouraged and (xii) The UGC of Bangladesh may formulate policy guidelines to support both public and private universities to be on the world university rankings. It may improve overall image of higher education in Bangladesh and international outlook which in turn may attract international students to study in Bangladesh.
In fine, WUR is not beyond criticism but still the international communities of universities recognize these endeavors. Of course, we are a part of them and should not ignore this tradition. As a brave nation, we should give importance on quality education, research and internationalization from institutional perspectives to secure a position in recognized university rankings for our prestige, integrity and reputations. Ultimately, the employability of graduates and the number of entrepreneurs the universities produce should be the guiding quality indicator.
The writer is the director of the
Research Division at Daffodil
International University