Hong Kong’s two oldest universities reverse recent slide down Asian rankings, but city’s faculty letting side down
- University of Hong Kong and Chinese University third and 11th respectively overall in new list of 687 institutions in region
- But only City University managed to place in top 50 when it came to staff’s academic qualifications
Hong Kong’s two oldest universities rose in the latest league table for Asia tertiary institutions after slipping in the past two years, but nearly all of the city’s establishments fared poorly in terms of faculty academic qualifications.
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) rose one place to third, while Chinese University (CUHK) was up two spots to 11th among the 687 Asian institutions rated in the latest list released by British firm Quacquarelli Symonds on Tuesday.
HKU shared the same ranking with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, while the National University of Singapore topped the table for a fourth consecutive year, and Peking University was up five places to second.
Four other local universities fell in the rankings – Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) dropped one place to ninth, City University fell two spots to 20th, Baptist University slid two places to 66th, and Lingnan University dropped from 120th to 131st.
Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Shue Yan University retained their previous rankings of 25th and 301st to 350th respectively. Hang Seng University, a college granted university status in 2018, was rated for the first time this year and placed in the group between 501st-550th.
The table accounts for 11 key indicators of university performance, including academic standing, faculty staff with PhDs, graduate employability, research quality and productivity, internationalisation on campus, and the diversity of each institution’s international collaborations.