Wednesday, May 13, 2009

South Korea has two unis in Asia's Top 10; Chonnam National #88.

QS.com ranked two South Korean universities---Seoul National and KAIST---among the top ten in Asia, and a total of 17 Korean universities made the top 100. Those two were also ranked among the top 100 in the world in 2008. Gwangju's Chonnam National University is 88th in Asia. Yes, I know I'm really reaching to make it of local interest.

More rankings and data available here, including a top 200 list which puts another 29 South Korean universities up there. Chosun University is tied for 151st. The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology is ranked first in "Papers Per Faculty," and is 15th in "International Students Review," though those categories are not explained.

The GlobalHigherEd blog---brought to my attention by Woland---gives its take on these Asian rankings:
The ranking process and product places ‘Asian universities’ into direct competition with each other, it reinforces a very particular definition of ‘Asia’ and therefore Asian regionalism, and it services an imagined emerging Asian regional education space.

All this, whilst appearing to level the playing field by invoking regional sentiments.

The Joongang Ilbo also evaluates and ranks Korean universities, though I haven't found much data from it. In 2008 Chonnam National University didn't crack the top 20, and in 2007 and 2006 it was number 19 in the nation.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

None of Korea's universities rank higher than 50th in the world, no matter which system you use. And they're not likely to get much higher since students can only fail through excessive absences.

kushibo said...

Am I misreading or is your subject header off?

Brian said...

ooh, it is, thanks for that.

Charles Montgomery said...

We're number 134, we're number 134!