The News
The University of Johannesburg has been ranked as sub-Saharan Africa’s best university, beating two historic rivals — the University of Pretoria and the University of the Witwatersrand — to the top spot.
The 2024 list by British magazine Times Higher Education (THE) places four South African universities in the top 10, two each from Rwanda and Ghana, and one each from Uganda and Somalia. Nigeria has 41 entries on the list, the most of any country. American University of Nigeria, ranked 12th in the overall list, was deemed the best in the country.
It is only the second edition of the ranking. Metrics used to compile the ranking included African research citations and co-authorship, accessibility for disabled people, and employability. These are metrics that “matter most to the development of nations south of the Sahara,” said the magazine’s chief global affairs officer Phil Baty in a statement.
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THE’s ranking was based on a survey of 23,000 students, in addition to data from schools and Dutch academic analytics company Elsevier, the magazine said. The 129 universities are from 22 African countries, covering less than half of the sub-Saharan African region.
A revised methodology led to new entries from Namibia, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde and Eswatini.
While it is ranked Africa’s best, University of Johannesburg is in the 401st to 500th place in THE’s global list, where the top 10 are US and British universities. Of the five metrics used for the world rankings, the largest points gaps between Johannesburg and first-placed Oxford are in teaching and research environment.
Each of the global top three universities — Oxford, MIT, and Harvard — have no more than 10 students per staff. Africa’s top three each have 20 or more, illustrating a gap in faculty resources on the continent.
Step Back
Economic and security challenges in many African countries have triggered youth migration waves in recent years, boosting the number of African students studying abroad. African students in tertiary education outside their home countries increased by 41% to 624,000 between 2010 and 2020.
South Africa and other countries in the region are a significant part of that increase but France, China and the US were the most popular destinations. This year, sub-Saharan African student migration to France rose 9%.
Despite having the most universities in THE’s Africa ranking, Nigeria is among Africa’s leading exporters of students. In Canada, only India, China, and the Philippines had more foreign students than Nigeria in 2023. In the US, Nigerian student university enrollment rose 13.5% to 20,029 students this year, making it Africa’s leading source of international students in the US and 7th globally.
But policy changes aimed at stifling immigration could dampen the trend going forward — as has been the case with Nigerian student migration to the UK.
The View From A British University
Imperial College London this month launched its first hub in Ghana, focused exclusively on science and technology in Africa. Officials said Imperial Global Ghana will help to build on a growing network of West African partners in universities, government, and civil society to support the co-creation of research, education and entrepreneurship programs.
The hub — Imperial’s third overseas after others in Singapore and San Francisco — will also advance collaboration between the West African innovation ecosystem with London, supporting the commercialization of scientific breakthroughs made in Africa, according to the officials.
Two other programs were unveiled during the launch. The Imperial-Schmidt AI Fellows Program will aim to support early career researchers from the University of Ghana and the African Institute of Mathematical Science to develop AI tools to drive key economic growth. The AIMS-Imperial Global Fellows Programme will see 40 doctoral researchers working together in Accra to develop professional, research, and collaborative skills to tackle challenges arising from climate change and urbanization.
— Additional reporting by Muchira Gachenge