Ateneo still Philippine’s top university

MANILA, Philippines —  Five Philippine universities landed in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings, with Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) once again being rated as the top university in the country.

ADMU placed in the 401-500 bracket this year, slipping about 300 places after being ranked 84th in Asia last year, based on the latest THE Asia rankings published yesterday.

The University of the Philippines (UP), which has dominated the country’s universities in most international assessments, was once again named second best-performing university in the country after it placed in the 501-600 bracket this year – dropping about 300 places from last year’s 201-250.

UP shares the second spot with De La Salle University, which remained in the 501-600 bracket.

This year, the University of Santo Tomas entered the rankings in the 601+ bracket, tying with Mapúa University, which remained in the same bracket. Last year, UST was only granted a “reporter” status in the regional ranking.

A “reporter” is a college/university that sends data to THE, but is not eligible for a rank.

Four Philippines schools were granted reporter status: Central Luzon State University, Mariano Marcos State University, Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology and the University of Eastern Philippines.

They are joining five other schools that remained reporters this year: Cebu Technological University, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Tarlac Agricultural University and Visayas State University.

This year’s ranking involved 739 universities from 31 territories in the continent.

THE rates universities in five performance indicators: teaching (learning environment); research environment (volume, income and reputation); research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence); international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry (income and patents).