The Australian National University (ANU) is one of a number of Australian universities that have fallen in the latest world rankings of tertiary institutions.
The ANU remains the country's top institution but has dropped three spots on the QS World University rankings, falling from 17 to 20.
Other universities around the country also fell, including the University of Adelaide which dropped 22 places to 103.
The University of New South Wales was the only Australian institution to rise, moving up one place to 47.
But ANU acting vice-chancellor Lawrence Cram says he is not worried about the shift.
"The rankings are so subject to minor variations up and down that one year's shift in one way or the other doesn't really mean much at all," he said.
"The rankings are produced by averaging together a number of different factors from different universities and it's almost impossible to see why the ANU would fall or rise in any given year."
The increasing quality of Asian universities is expected to see Australian institutions drop further in the rankings in coming years.
"International competition amongst universities is very intense and there are many countries who are supporting their universities to try and promote them up those ladders," Professor Cram said.
"A country like China ... is now building a university system and gradually their universities will start to move up in the world rankings.
"I think under the current settings Australian universities - including the ANU - will stay pretty level or perhaps slip back a little bit."
Professor Cram says more money needs to be invested in the country's top institutions if the Australian public wants to maintain the pride associated with high university rankings.
"Our university system is really high up there. We have an excellent system of universities in Australia and we're coming off a couple of years of quite good support. However other countries are investing a lot of money in building their university systems," he said.
"We need to keep up there. We need to keep the level of investment and keep catching up."
Source:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/09/3007136.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment