Organisations that criticised the University of the South Pacific’s ranking among the top 10 per cent of universities in the world should have sort an explanation from the regional institution.
This was USP’s acting deputy vice-chancellor education Professor Jito Vanualailai’s response to the Consumer Council of Fiji chief executive officer Seema Shandil who said the ranking was misleading and overstretched at best.
Ms Shandil said making such unsubstantiated claims of exclusivity was seen as a marketing tactic to lure consumers — who were potential students in this case.
“USP has and continues to greatly contribute to the development of the region hence should place itself above such marketing gimmicks which may bring disrepute to them,” she said.
She said the university should refrain from making statements that could create a false impression.
In response, Prof Vanualailai said organisations lashing out at the regional university should do thorough investigations before speaking.
“You might have noticed that our advertisements carry a footnote that explains our source *THE World University Rankings 2022 and 2020 International Handbook of Universities.
“The current edition suggests that there are about 20,000 universities globally, so our position using the two references would have us in the top 10 per cent of universities.
“There are two recognised databases of universities globally — https://www.whed.net/home.php — the database maintained by the IUA for UNESCO recognises over 20,000 officially accredited or recognised higher education institutions and https://www.webometrics.info/en/Methodology — Webometrics rank 31,500 universities globally, although they only report the top 12,000.
“This means a THE ranking of 1001-1200 is between the top 3-5 per cent depending on which source is used. For the purpose of our marketing, we have referred to the more conservative earlier source and ‘claimed’ 10 per cent rather than the top 5 per cent, which many academics from around the world have written to me to correct.
“This is the first time in 53 years that we have broken into the THE ranking. That itself is a reason to celebrate for everyone in the region. Moreover, in two categories, we have achieved.”
The university was ranked among the top 10 per cent of universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
