MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) – UK-based higher education rating agency QS World University Ranking has published its 2014 ranking of Asian universities, with Singapore and South Korea leapfrogging the competition.
The QS Asian University Rankings 2014 lists the region’s top 99 universities in what it bills as an “essential overview of higher education in one of the world's most dynamic and rapidly developing regions.”
This year’s academic reputation table has seen a shift in the top positions, with Singapore and South Korea emerging as the new leaders, and Japan slipping further down in the rankings.
For the first time in its history, the National University of Singapore (NUS) has landed at the summit of the list of Asia’s top universities, followed closely by Korea’s KAIST and Hong Kong’s HKU.
“Singapore and Korea have been on an upward trajectory in recent years, with both countries channeling their current economic dynamism into ambitious higher education investment programs,” said Danny Byrne, a senior education editor at topuniversities.com.
Byrne pointed to the hefty $16 billion lavished by the Singapore government on its flagship NUS and Nanyang Technological Universities to boost their scientific and innovation performance. Nanyang climbed three positions over the year, jumping to seventh place.
In contrast to Singapore, which opted to focus on its two elite universities, Korea has mobilized the entirety of its higher education sector in the space of a generation, leading to a boost in the rankings of its 14 universities since last year, Byrne said.
Singapore and Korea’s ascent towards the summit eclipsed the continued downfall of Japan and Hong Kong. Hong Kong University slipped to third position this year and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) landed fifth, marking the first time in five years that a Hong Kong university failed to take the top position.
Japan’s University of Tokyo brought up the rear as the nation’s only top ten education institution. Tokyo’s position in the ranking has been on the decline ever since it took the third place in QS’s inaugural 2009 Asia Rating, Byrne said.
“Tokyo has struggled to keep pace with its rivals’ internationalization programs,” he said, referring to Japan’s declining attractiveness to foreign academicians and students.
At the same time, China’s Peking University has secured its place among the QS top ten after Beijing raised state funding of R&D projects by 20 percent annually.
QS’s Asia Universities Rating was introduced in 2009 to focus on the world’s biggest and most populous continent. It claims the rating employs “a slightly different methodology to that used for the QS World University Rankings, reflecting the region's different priorities.”
