EdTalk | Ranking race in China is costly
Central government incentives have led to massive gains at the best universities, but also intensified education inequalities, writes Joshua Mok
Mainland China is still waiting for its top universities to gain entry to the exclusive ranks of the world’s 10 elite institutions.
Incentives aimed at ensuring its institutions can compete with the best have led to its two leading universities, both in Beijing – Tsinghua University and Peking University – being ranked 25th and 38th, respectively, in the 2018 QS World University rankings.
Shanghai’s Fudan University is ranked 40th. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is ranked 26th, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) 30th.
The rival Times Higher Education World University Rankings places Peking equal 27th with Edinburgh and New York, and Tsinghua 30th, with HKU 40th and HKUST 44th.
American and British institutions dominate the top five in each of the two rankings: the QS ranks Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at No 1, Stanford, second, Harvard third and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) fourth, with Britain’s Cambridge fifth. The Times Higher Education rankings put Oxford first, Cambridge second, Caltech and Stanford joint third and MIT fifth.
Beijing’s commitment to investment has helped Chinese universities to show clear signs of improvement. The central government’s “Double World Class Project” (or shuang yiliu), running since 2015, offers funds to an elite group of the nation’s universities and academic disciplines.
