Singapore is the country that boasts the best university education on the Asian continent, according to what emerges from the latest QS Asian University Rankings, the main ranking of university institutes in Asia. In fact, the first place goes to the National University of Singapore (NUS), which surpassed by two places the University of Hong Kong, which held the record until last year. Another national university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), a "young" university, born just over twenty years ago, also appears in seventh place.
The other country on the rise, from the point of view of the quality of education, is South Korea, whose two most important universities (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Seoul National University) occupy the second and fourth positions respectively .
The leap forward of Singapore and Korea corresponds to a retreat of Hong Kong, probably due to recent changes introduced in the education system. Singapore's success, on the other hand, is the result of the massive investments desired by the government, which, properly managed, have produced an effective reform of the research system and an increased presence in university halls of the most renowned foreign scholars.
The demand for quality higher education is very much alive in Singapore and shows no sign of abating in a population that gives education a primary role in building society. Worldwide, Singapore, with the National University, ranks 24th, first among Asian countries.
At the top of the ranking stands the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by the famous Harvard University, while the third position is occupied by an equally famous university, the British one of Cambridge.
The QS system, which selects the 800 best universities on the planet, takes into consideration the quality of the research carried out in the universities, the employment rate of graduates, the resources dedicated to teaching and the effort spent in attracting foreign students.
It will be interesting to know that the best Italian universities – the University of Bologna and La Sapienza in Rome – are far from the top of the rankings, occupying 188th and 196th place respectively.
Attachments: Asian Correspondent
