UK university education ´only 10th best in the world´

[15.05.2012]

The UK is ranked tenth in the world for quality of university education, despite the presence of internationally-renowned institutions such as the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and University College London.

The United States, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark make up the top five in the Universitas 21 Rankings table for 2012, with the UK falling behind Switzerland, Norway, Australia and the Netherlands.

Universitas 21's report uses a range of measures to establish which nations are the best at providing higher education.

An important aspect of this is highlighting the importance of creating an environment in which institutions can contribute to economic and cultural development.

In total more than 20 different measures have been used to compile the list.

"The success of the system is measured by output variables such as research performance, participation rates and employment," report authors explain. "The measures are grouped under four main headings: Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output."

Researchers note that there are strong relationships between resources and output. Interestingly, only the UK and Australia are not in the top eight for resources, despite falling into the top eight for output.

Posted by Jennifer Wright