By MIKOspace
The United Nations agency, UNESCO, challenged the
validity and reliability, and therefore the usefulness, of University Rankings.
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in
Singapore has secured top placing on a league table of the world's best young
universities. It has overtaken Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, who was No. one for the past two years,
according to London-based educational consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Of what value to Singapore is this NTU “achievement”?
Well, any good researcher would know that you
will get what you measure, instead of what you want to claim the measure to mean. So, what exactly does QS Ranking mean?
The United Nations agency, UNESCO, challenged
the validity and reliability, and therefore the usefulness, of University
Rankings:
“Global university rankings fail to capture
either the meaning or divers qualities of a university or the characteristics
of universities in a way that values and respects their educational and social
purposes, missions and goals. At
present, these rankings are of dubious value, are underpinned by
questionable social science, arbitrarily privilege particular indicators, and
use shallow proxies as correlates of quality.”
Indeed, Universities Ranking is itself
conceptually problematic. It embraced an
“idealised” model of University to be achieved and in so doing generalize the failure
of most Universities to achieve it. The World-Class University has NEVER
existed as a concept, or as an empirical reality. The status of “World-Class
University” as the gold standard is the normative social construct of the
rankers themselves.
In fact, even QS cautions against the use of
the QS Ranking beyond its simple methodology and purpose “to serve the student
consumer. Rankings allows the consumer to see how institutions stand against
other universities." Adding: "As it became apparent that more and
more undergraduate students were looking to study abroad, there was a need for
an international comparison. We did not
come about it from the point of view of an academic exercise with metrics."
This is a confession admitting to the fact
that QS Rankings evolve around the metrics used to devise the tables including
citations and peer review. The Rankers did not build their QS Rankings on any
solid or vigorous foundation that would withstand the penetrative professional
scrutiny of the Academics or Research Institutions which now used them to position
themselves in spite of the lack of validity and reliability of these measures. Therein lies its fundamental conceptual and
methodological flaw, confirming that the QS Ranking is therefore irrelevant and
immaterial for any serious educational policy purpose.
In fact, QS rankers themselves were surprised
at "the extent to which governments and university leaders use the
rankings to set strategic targets. We at
QS think this is wrong. Rankings are (just) a relative measure - if other
universities do better and move up, you have to go faster."
It is just plain mindless stupidity, I may add.
QS Rankings are akin to nothing more than a
Market Consumers Survey, much like how marketing agencies rank the Apple iPhone
with other handphones by Blackberry, Nokia, ZTE, Samsung, Sony, Motorola,
Lenovo and HTC.
Whither NTU’s Impact on Singapore? NTU President and
University Management, as well as the Ministry of Education, should be more
concerned about the need to increase NTU’s, and other universities’,
contributions to society, instead of obsessing with the ranking game.
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