In the Islamic World: QAU, COMSATS among top 50 varsities

Saudi, Irani and Turkish varsities dominate top 10

Even as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) decided to abandon a university ranking system owing to “inaccurate data”, a ranking of top varsities in the Islamic world has ranked two institutions from Pakistan amongst the top 50.

The ITU Quality Research Ranking has listed the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad and the COMSATS in the top 50, even as it listed 13 varsities in its list of 185 universities.

QAU has been ranked at 35 in the rankings and is the top-most ranked Pakistani university in the rankings. It finds itself sandwiched between Universite Mohammad Premier Ouja of Morrocco and the Sabanci Universitesi of Turkey.

On the other hand, COMSATS comes in six places below at 41, finding itself between the Alexandria University of Egypt and the Mohammed V University in Morocco. However, the rankings list COMSATS as second in Pakistan behind QAU.

In the regional list, the University of Agriculture of Faisalabad (UAF) came in third while the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad was in at four. They were followed by the University of Punjab from Lahore, the University of Karachi at six, Government College University Lahore at seven, the University of Sargodha at eight, the University of Peshawar at nine, Bahauddin Zakaria University at 10, International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) at 11and the Islamia University at 12.

UAF came in at 68 on the ranking of universities from the Islamic world, finding itself between the Babol Noshirvani University of Technology of Iran and the University of Nottingham in Malaysia.

NUST, when compared to international educational establishments, was ranked at 87, between Tabriz University of Medical Sciences of Iran and the Bu Ali Sina University of Iran.

The University of Punjab from was the last varsity from Pakistan to make it to the top 100, coming in at 97. It found itself sandwiched between the likes of University of Minia of Egypt and the Shahrood University of Technology from Iran. By comparison, the top 10 rankings were dominated by Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The King Abdul Aziz University of Saudi Arabia was ranked top with a score of 10.82. The University of Malaysia was second with a score of 10.31. The University of Tehran from Iran was third with a score of 9.98.

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology of Saudi Arabia was fourth with a score of 9.94 and the Sharif University of Technology of Iran rounded up the top five universities of the Islamic world with a score of 8.58.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2018.