Thomas Byrne
Ceist:112. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the decline in Irish universities’ ratings in international rankings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29339/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 4 July 2018
Ceisteanna (112)
Freagraí scríofa
At the outset it is important to note that that there is a diversity of ranking systems under which universities are assessed on the basis of a number of different models. The most recent world rankings published by QS are one of a suite of ranking models which are published annually which also include the Times Higher Education and U-Multirank. In addition, QS itself has eight sets of rankings including ‘Top 50 under 50’ and ‘Graduate Employability Rankings’.
The Deputy may wish to note that the most recent rankings again reflected a strong performance overall by Ireland’s Higher Education system. In the 2019 QS World University Rankings Ireland sees two of its eight top institutions featuring in the top 200, or top 1%, of some 15,000 universities worldwide. All seven universities and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) feature in the top 800 worldwide.
Caution is appropriate in interpreting the results of international league tables of universities in light of the significant methodological issues in terms of how the rankings are compiled. In the case of the most recent QS international rankings these include that they:-
- do not measure the quality of teaching or the quality of learning;
- do not take into account how universities support access or tackle educational disadvantage - a key national objective;
- rely on global surveys of academics and employers who may have had no interaction with the institution in question; and
- measure the impact of research by the number of times a paper is cited and do not factor in the quality of the journal in which the research appears.
In conclusion, it is clear that international rankings can impact – both positively and negatively – on international perceptions of our national university system. It is important, therefore, that we develop a deeper understanding of the key drivers of Ireland’s rankings in order to be able to explain better the factors driving performance, highlighting where the approach could be improved. In that regard, my Department is currently evaluating the trends emerging from the separate models and will feed the results of this work through the general mechanisms for ensuring quality across the Higher Education system.