Africa’s top universities flail on world stage

Egypt might have the most places of African universities on the 2025 QS Top Universities global ranking but it is South Africa which again has the top universities in Africa. The University of Cape Town was the highest placed African institution though ranked just 171st in the world. It is one of four South African schools in the top five. Egypt’s top placed school was Cairo University at fifth in Africa, but 350th globally. Overall just 40 African universities made the list of some 1500 institutions globally.

African universities’ low rankings on charts like the one done by QS tend to be due to low scores on crucial factors, especially academic reputation, the ratio of faculty to students, and citations per faculty. For example, Cairo University is the top ranked university from Egypt but its 350th place in the global ranking may be due to recording a score of 3 out of 100 on faculty citations.

But the top ranked African universities tend to score well above average on their participation in international research networks and employment outcomes of graduates. For example, Makerere University in Uganda, Kenya’s University of Nairobi, and Nigeria’s University of Lagos — which are outside the Africa top 10 — are rated poorly on academic reputation and faculty citation but highly on employment outcomes.