New Zealand Winning the Educational Rankings War

Education New Zealand: Media Release 12/11/09

In the global battle to attract international students, academic rankings have become an important tool and one of the main factors used to help students decide where they want to study. New Zealand’s consistently high quality of education has given this country the edge when it comes to staying ahead of the pack.

“University rankings have always been a bit controversial as they tend to favour older, larger universities,” says Education New Zealand’s Chief Executive Robert Stevens. “Given New Zealand’s small size, we are thrilled that our universities continue to put us on top of the academic world.”

Stevens is referring to the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities released by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. It is one of the most used rankings in the world, and this year has featured five of New Zealand’s eight universities in its “Top 500” list.

Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities

“No other country has 63% of its universities included on that list. We are absolutely leading the pack,” says Robert Stevens.

The only country that came close to matching New Zealand’s performance was the Netherlands, with 61% of their universities on the list. Australia had 43% of their universities make the list, and the UK had 35%. The US, despite dominating the Top 100, had only 8% of their total number of universities feature on the rankings.

The New Zealand universities which featured on the rankings were: University of Auckland, University of Otago, Massey University, University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington.