The National Universities Commission (NUC) has ranked the University of Ibadan (UI) first in its latest 2021 ranking released on Monday.
The lead presenter, Professor Peter Okebukola, disclosed this in Abuja on Monday during a capacity building workshop on improving the ranking of public universities in Nigeria, organised by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
He said the ranking involved 113 universities across the country using 12 indicators.
The institutions were ranked based on the total number of full-time students, the number of international students, students and staff ratio, efficiency, google scholar index and contribution to the knowledge economy.
Other criteria include; percentage of international staff, the percentage of programmes with full-time accreditation, all citations per capital, amongst others.
Okebukola, who spoke on the overview of global university ranking and the place of the Nigerian higher education system in the knowledge economy, said the full report would be made available to NUC and uploaded on a website.
“You cannot get any form of ranking system in the whole wide world that does what Nigeria has done.
“For this 2021 edition, based on the 12 indicators that we have developed, University of Ibadan is the first, followed by the Federal University of Technology Akure.
“Next year, we will look at the indicators that we used this year and see whether there are things to add or drop. So, it is going to be an annual thing,” he said.
However, he lamented that some universities did not show up for the ranking, urging them to partake in the next ranking.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Elias Bogoro, said the workshop was part of the strategies to reposition the university system in Nigeria.
He said Nigerian universities are not doing well in the global ranking, hence the need to reposition and showcase them to the world.
“The situation is so unfortunate and worrisome that it calls for reflection and action on the part of the government, the Nigerian intelligentsia and indeed the Nigerian people,” he said.
“It is challenging in the sense that the success of our universities is tied to the progress and development of the nation.
“If the Asian countries were able to rise to such enviable place along with the ranking of world universities, nothing stops Nigerian universities from making similar progress if they are so determined.
“Some of the problems identified as hindering the progress and performance of Nigerian universities in the global ranking of world universities include poor investment by some tiers of government in the development of universities.”
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Adamu, assured that ranking in 2022 will be much more Impressive.