Rabat – Times Higher Education magazine published last Wednesday, September 11, the World University Rankings 2020. Four Moroccan universities were part of the 1400 universities, from 92 countries that appeared on the list. However, none of them made it to the Top 500.
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, in Fes ranked first on the national level. Internationally, however, the university ranked in the 601-800 section. Hassan II University in Casablanca, Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech, and Mohammed V University in Rabat all ranked in the 1001+ section.
The University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah made a steady progress from ranking 1001+ in 2018, to 801-1000 in 2019 and then 601-800 in this year’s rankings. Meanwhile, Mohammed V University and Cadi Ayyad University went down the ranking ladder through the years. Rabat’s University went from Top 800 in 2017 to 1001+ in 2020, while Cadi Ayyad University made an alarming decline from 301-350 in 2015 to this year’s ranking.
Times Higher Education takes five criteria into consideration for their rankings: teaching, research, citations, industry outcome, and international outlook.
On the global ladder, the University of Oxford remained in first place, followed by the California Institute of Technology, the institute leaped from number 5 last year to second place. The University of Cambridge came third, followed by Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In the MENA region, two universities from Saudi Arabia ranked first and second. King Abdulaziz University (201-250 globally) and Alfaisal University (251-300), respectively. The third best university in the MENA region is the United Arab Emirates University (301-500).
Other universities in the MENA region that made it to the Top 500 of the rankings include Khalifa University (UAE), American University of Beirut (Lebanon), Jordan University of Science and Technology (Jordan), Qatar University (Qatar), Aswan University, and Mansoura University (Egypt).
Back in June 2019, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), an annual publication of university rankings, published the 2020 edition of the 1000 top universities in the world. No Moroccan university made it to the list.
