QS World University Rankings: Beginning of the Rankings season
‘Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end'. Here is the beginning of the new rankings season and the QS world university rankings have been published. Key student recruitment dates, the beginning of the academic year, the calendar of meetings, examinations, and conferences is a conventional business of universities annually. The university ranking is the other major component which has been added over the years. 
The time period between mid-august to September is the time of publication of the three main global rankings: the Academic Rankings of World Universities (the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings), the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World Rankings. First two rankings have been published and the latter one will be issued shortly. QS Rankings are again dominated by American and British universities.
According to this league table, Cambridge University, is the world's top university this year, followed by Harvard and MIT. Out of top 20 universities, 13 are American, 5 are British, and Canada and Switzerland each have one. The top non-British EU University, the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, comes in at number 33. The top Irish university, Trinity College Dublin, is now at number 65, followed by University College Dublin at number 134.
Except University College Cork and Dublin City University, the ranking of all the Irish Universities have dropped considerably. The top Scottish university is the University of Edinburgh, at number 20. The publication of these rankings generates general murmur of dissatisfaction from the academic community, and undeniably it is understandable. Universities can make a strategic goal with the help of these rankings as they want to come under top 20, or top 50, or top-whatever university.
These rankings provide the picturesque of how universities, and national systems, are developing, and they provide useful information and institutional critiques. Rankings should not be misused!
Source: Richha Bhatnagar (Shiksha Team)
Date: 5th September, 2011
