Global rankings as yardstick of quality of higher education

Abstract

Higher education institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have emerged in global rankings in recent surveys. For instance, in the 2019 Times of Higher Education's World University Rankings, all except the Kingdom of Bahrain have made a spot in the global positions of colleges and universities that are deemed to have demonstrated exemplary quality of higher education. In terms of number, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had the highest number (i.e. five) of “most global” universities in the GCC, led by King Abdulaziz University (rank 201–250) and Alfaisal University (rank 301–350). The United Arab Emirates has grabbed four positions, led by Khalifa University (rank 301–350) and United Arab Emirates University (rank 351–400). The Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar have each one university in the global rankings. The research problems explored in this chapter were: Are global rankings reliable measures of quality in the context of higher education? What do these rankings mean from the perspectives of academics? Do they reflect quality of higher education in the Gulf? What do academics say about “quality” and global rankings? This was a qualitative study involving GCC-based academics in higher education. Data were collected using an interview schedule that was floated to the participants using their official work emails. Manual coding of data was done in order to analyse thematically the responses. Three themes emerged from the study, namely: Quality Education as Emblem of Excellence, Quality Education as Continuous Metamorphosis, and Quality Education and Ranking as Siamese Twins. The findings provided nuanced understanding of the notion of quality from the lens of the Gulf-based academics and in explaining how global rankings may interface with quality higher education from the voices of the academics.