COMSATS dislodges QUA as top varsity in Pakistan

Secures the 137th spot amongst varsities from emerging economies

The COMSATS University in Islamabad has surged ahead of the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) as the top-ranked varsity in the country.

In doing so, it has also secured the 137th spot amongst varsities from emerging economies.

The Times Higher Education (THE), a global university ranking company which collects higher education data, released its Emerging Economies University Ranking for 2019 recently.



The ranking covers nearly 450 universities – up from 378 last year – from 43 emerging countries classified by the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) Index as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier” economies.

The rankings use thirteen parameters to judge institutions on their teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

According to the rankings, COMSATS has managed to grab the 137th spot with a score of 28 and with 31,413 full-time equivalency (FTE) students. However, in real terms, the varsity slid six places compared to 2018 when it was ranked at 131.

From Pakistan, the top three was rounded up with the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) at 232 and the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) at 251. They had scores of 22.1-24.6 and 19.9-22 respectively.

Chinese universities dominated the Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019, bagging the top four positions. Tsinghua University surpasses Peking University as this year’s top emerging economy institution.

In fact, China was the most represented nation in the annual list, featuring as many as 72 institutions.

Out of the top 500

In the global rankings, however, Pakistan slid out of the top 500 varsities.



COMSATS, though, retained its crown as the top varsity of the country but it did so with a ranking of 634. NUST and UAF were listed in the 800-1,000 bracket.

The biggest upset, however, has been QAU which failed to make the cut for either the emerging economy rankings or the world university rankings.

This is a far cry from last year when QAU was ranked 87th amongst universities of emerging economies and 467th in the overall world ranking of universities — providing Pakistan’s sole representation in the top 500 varsities of the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2019.