<div dir="ltr"><h2 class="">SA varsities rated globally for quality and accessibility</h2>
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Roxanne Henderson | 18 May, 2016 08:24</div>
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<img src="http://www.timeslive.co.za/incoming/2016/03/11/stellenbosch-university.jpg/ALTERNATES/crop_630x400/Stellenbosch+University.JPG" alt="" height="400px" width="630">
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Criticising transformation at the University of Stellenbosch‚
students complained that its language policy did not cater to all its
students with the release of the “Luister” documentary. File photo <br>
<b>Image by:</b> Andre Pentz via Twitter </div>
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In a year that has seen university students rioting and campus
buildings fire bombed‚ South Africa still leads the pack ahead of other
African nations in new global higher education rankings.</h3>
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</div></div><p>This is according to higher education analysts Quacquarelli
Symonds' (QS) 2016 Higher Education System Strength rankings‚ which
measure the best national environments for higher education
institutions.</p>
<p>South Africa came in at 30th place out of the 50 countries ranked‚
the only country in Africa to place in the published rankings.</p>
<p>Europe was the best performing continent with 22 of its countries providing a top-50 institution.</p>
<p>In a publication by QS last year‚ ranking 404 universities in Brics countries‚ South Africa failed to make the top 10.</p>
<p>Said QS at the time: “Managers of these universities argue that their
faculty-student ratio is essentially set by the government‚ which
presses them to admit more students but does not fund them well enough
to hire more staff.</p>
<p>“These tricky educational economics mean‚ too‚ that South Africa’s
academics are not well-paid by world standards and as a result many do
not have a PhD.”</p>
<p>But the new rankings do not only look at the number of top
universities a country has‚ but rather the quality and accessibility of
its higher education system‚ QS said.</p>
<p>The rankings measure academic performance alongside other metrics to
assess strengths and weaknesses of a country's higher education
environment.</p>
<p>There are students that might not agree that South Africa's higher education system is accessible.</p>
<p>Last year‚ students across the country saw universities shut down as
they joined the #FeesMustFall protest for a 0% increase in fees.</p>
<p>Criticising transformation at the University of Stellenbosch‚
students complained that its language policy did not cater to all its
students with the release of the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF3rTBQTQk4" target="_blank">Luister</a>” documentary.</p>
In spite of these challenges Stellenbosch University last year jumped 88 places in the QS' world university rankings<br><br><a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/05/18/SA-varsities-rated-globally-for-quality-and-accessibility">http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2016/05/18/SA-varsities-rated-globally-for-quality-and-accessibility</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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