US dominates Chinese ranking of world's top universities

BEIJING (AFP) - Jiaotong University, one of China's top centres of higher learning, has published a list of the best universities in the world, with a heavy emphasis on US-based institutes.

Out of the top 100 on the list prepared by the Shanghai-based university, the alma mater of former president Jiang Zemin, 54 are located in the United States, including number one, Harvard.

Thirty-three are located in Europe, and nine in the Asia and Pacific region, the latter including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The list, which was prepared by the University's Institute of Higher Education, is based on criteria such as number of alumni and staff winning Nobel prizes or having their work published in top academic journals.

Such rankings are growing in importance as an increasing number of Chinese students pursue academic training abroad.

According to China's education ministry, over a million Chinese have studied at foreign universities since the 1970s, and currently more than 100,000 go overseas for study every year.