Rankings not be-all, end-all for Thai unis
The fact that Thai universities repeatedly get low spots in international rankings is disappointing. But given the methodology for the rankings, it is hardly a surprise. There are two major rankings, the Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE) and the Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), where Thai universities rank mostly from 600-1,000.
Recently there was great concern about Thai universities dropping down to the 601800 band.
People are quick to criticise the Thai universities for poor teaching and researchweak academics. While some of these factors do impact the rankings, it is important to see other challenges which are not primarily the problem of the university that result in poor international standings.
Firstly, rankings should be seen more like how a football league works. The fact that Chelsea or Manchester have some of the best teams in the world does not mean that the suburb of Chelsea or city of Manchester produce the best football players. Rather they have the resources to buy in the talent, manage them, and profit from them.
Similarly, because the UK and US have the highest-ranking universities does not mean the US produces the best students and academics, or Boston (Harvard) or Los Angeles (Stanford) have superior education systems which produce Nobel Prize winners. Instead, they do have billion-dollar endowments which let them buy in the best researchers and charge high fees for the best students.
When comparing Harvard University, ranked No.1 in ARWU, with Mahidol University, ranked No.1 in Thailand and Thailand’s richest university, these differences are stark. Harvard has an annual budget 30 times larger than Mahidol, but about the same number of students. It has a US$30 billion endowment, and Mahidol has none (though it does generate income through its hospitals).
Given that it is much quicker to buy in a Nobel Prize winner, or a widely published academic, than to create one, it is no coincidence that the top-ranked universities in the world are also the richest — looking at the list of the top 20 universities in the ARWU, 16 of them are also in the 20 richest universities in the world. It is possible for a rich university to buy positions on the ranking.
This is not to say that Harvard is only there because of its wealth, but the money helps. Some highly ranked universities are not necessarily rich. However, the rankings do favour a type of university which most Thai universities are not — smaller, research-based institutions.
This shows an assumption in the rankings that research is more important than teaching. Most people would agree with this — universities are sites of innovation for technology, science, and understanding society. However, they are also places of learning.
Universities must train a generation of high school leavers, and in today’s job market more people are searching for graduate degrees to improve or develop their careers. Yet, the quality of education is not prioritised in the rankings. Though some rankings do give weight to teaching, they are never more important than research.
Again, using Harvard as an example, it only has 6,000 undergraduate students, whereas most Thai public university would have at least double that number. Thailand’s universities have the mandate of educating a generation of young Thais. The highest-ranking universities do not — they are educating a small elite.
Undergraduate education demands much more teaching resources, ones which may not be ranked. It is unlikely that a Nobel Prize winner would spend much time teaching undergraduates (and many would question if they would be good
teachers anyway).
Because Thai universities must take on a certain number of undergraduates a year, resources (such as lectures and the budget) are devoted to this and taken away from the activities which produce rank, such as research.
Again, just because Thai universities do teach more undergraduates is not an excuse alone for their poor ranking. But there are other intervening factors. Another is that the measurement of research is often done by publication and citation.
Thailand has one major impediment here: the lack of researchers publishing in English. Research rankings favour certain languages, mainly English, but French, German, and Chinese publications have more opportunity to be ranked than Thai.
The majority of lecturers in Thailand work in Thai, and publish in Thai. If their research output is primarily for Thai audiences, this does make sense. However, little of that research will count towards the international rankings because Thai language publications often are not included in the global citations index measuring research.
Rankings put much emphasis on reputation, which is a risky form of measurement. Ask someone who invested in Bernie Madoff’s funds how trustworthy reputation is: His funds had a reputation for great returns on investment, but in reality were a Ponzi scheme. Reputation is self-fulfilling: The better a reputation a university has, the better a reputation it will get.
The challenge for Thailand is how to create a reputation in the first place when it is competing with the best. Admittedly this is a challenge further exacerbated by Thai university administrations’ ability to generate bad reputations through weak responses to plagiarism, mistreatment of students and quashing academic freedom.
Measuring what people think are the best universities does not actually measure how good the universities are, but rather if people think they are good. Many academics quietly note that the highest ranking universities often give little assistance to students, are poor at helping students from minorities, and give easy A grades — but contrary to the facts will acknowledge these universities are very reputable.
So what do the rankings actually measure? One hint comes from looking where universities from developing countries rank. One needs to go a long way down the list before coming across a university in a developing country. There are universities in China and Saudi Arabia which come in at under 100, but these are hardly poor developing countries.
The first universities from genuine developing countries are Brazil and Mexico at 100-150 (and again, it is debatable if they are developing). If world GDP correlates roughly with university rankings, isn’t the measurement mainly on the relative wealth of a university and not their contribution to a society?
While there are lots of holes in this argument, overall the measurements of what makes a good university are based on the model of an elite western researchbased university.
However, in Thailand most universities are for educating large numbers of undergraduates, many of whom do not have a high-quality secondary education and may not speak an international language. The resources of texts and materials for the classroom are limited, and the universities may have a short history of liberated and contemporary education.
Again, this is not to excuse the poor educational practices, the tendency for rote learning, or nervousness towards critical thinking.
Rather, even if Thai universities were doing an excellent job (as some departments and faculties do), this would not have much of an impact on their ranking anyway — so why would administrators devote any resources to this anyway?
However, rankings could be considered just one of a number of ways to assess the impact of a university, alongside building a generation of educated people who can contribute to local communities, national development, democratic society and so on. Maybe this would give a better idea if Thai universities are doing what they should be.
Thailand’s universities have the mandate of educating a generation of young Thais.
Mike Hayes teaches at the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University.