UP rallies to 156th in Asia university rankings

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines is still the country’s lone tertiary education institution in this year’s Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings.

According to the London-based publication, UP jumped to 156th place from the 201-250 bracket in 2017.

The country’s premier university also moved up in the THE World University Rankings, placing at 601-800 bracket from the 801-1,000 bracket.

“In calculating the top universities in Asia, the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2018 use the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings, but they are recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia’s institutions,” THE said.

The top 350 universities in Asia were judged across all of their core missions: teaching (25 percent), research (30 percent), citations (research influence), international outlook (7.5 percent) and industry income (7.5 percent).

UP scored 20.5 in teaching, 10 in research, 40 in citations, 32.6 in industry income and 39.8 in international outlook.

“UP is largely seen as one of the best Filipino universities in national rankings and among the top institutions in Asia. Recent improvements include academic reputation and international faculty ratio,” THE said on its website.

In a statement, UP Vice President for Academic Affairs Cynthia Rose Bautista said that UP is one of the top three Asian universities that moved the most in terms of citations of published works by scholars from different parts of the world.

UP also placed 75^th in the 2018 Quacquarelli Symonds Asia University Rankings and 367^th in the 2018 QS World University Rankings, which were released last year.

The National University of Singapore is still the best university in Asia, followed by Tsinghua University and Peking University both in China at second and third places, respectively.

THE Asia University Rankings lists the top 350 universities in the Asia. It uses 13 performance indicators covering the areas of teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.

Last week, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to replace the student activists from UP who walk out of their classes to stage anti-government rallies with deserving Lumad.

But the students were unfazed, saying the student movement will push through with its plan to organize a bigger protest on February 23 to condemn some policies of the administration.

READ: UP students unfazed by Duterte's threat vs protesters