Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 April 2012
76 Deputy Sandra McLellan asked the Minister for Education and Skills the way he intends to address the recent Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings which failed to feature an Irish university; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20995/12]
View answerThere is significant debate around the relative importance attached to rankings criteria and on their capacity to fully capture the quality of what is on offer in higher education institutions. The Times Higher Education World Reputation rankings are a new set of rankings in its second year and are based on reputational surveys only. Despite some decline, Irish universities continue to figure prominently in world rankings. Irish institutions are featuring in the top 1% in the world. In 2011, two Irish institutions were in the top 200 and another three in the top 400 Times Higher Education World University ranked institutions out of some 15,000 universities worldwide. Moreover, the overall performance of the Irish system was highly ranked; 17th place overall and 6th place globally relative to our GDP. Delivering high quality higher education for a growing proportion of our population within our current resources will mean that we need to maintain a clear focus on system performance overall rather than a narrower focus on individual institutional performance.
