It's time we embraced and consciously competed in World University Rankings, however flawed they might be.

South African universities and the ANC-led government alike have a fraught and ambiguous relationship with the various rankings of universities that are published from time to time. Three things normally come up in these discussions.

Quite rightly the critics of rankings systems point to the flaws in the very idea of ranking - can one really measure the quality of a University through quantitative methods such as numbers of publications in particular journals, or the ratio of students to staff? Well of course the answer is "no" on one level.

But if you accept that these quantitative measures - and there are several of them - are but a proxy for the real issues of quality, then they become far less worrying. If a university employs the best staff, they will inevitably be highly research active, and their insightful and cutting edge research will find its way into the best journals. Similarly, if class sizes are small, it means students will receive careful attention. And if the two measures exist simultaneously in one university, then the best staff will be teaching students in small and intimate class settings.

This adds up to a quantitative indication that the university is indeed of the highest quality. And the top University in the world in almost every ranking system that exists, Harvard, runs along these lines. Almost all academics are required to teach; they are the best academics you can get; and class sizes are tiny. University nirvana!

The critics also claim that this is a first world game, unsuited to a developing country such as ours. In one statement a few years ago, the current Minister of Higher Education and Training in fact went further, and said the rankings "were invented by the World Bank".

This is to reduce complexity somewhat. In fact one of the most famous rankings, the Shanghai system, was the invention of a single University in China, at a time when Chinese universities began to realize that they had a lot of catching up to do in terms of University quality.

The Times Higher ranking system was invented by a weekly international higher education newspaper supplement; and the QS ranking system was a spin-off from the Times Higher ranking system. 

In fact it is the non-Western Shanghai ranking that remains ruthlessly single minded, making no concessions to anything other than quality, while it is the Western-based Times Higher and QS rankings that have now begun to produce "sub-rankings" which take account of a range of new criteria, for example the income of the country in which the University is located.

The Chinese have made it clear that it is the world's best universities, such as Harvard, Yale and Oxford, that they seek to emulate, and have sought no excuses for anything less. They have been hugely successful in doing so in the past ten years, rising as rapidly in the rankings as they have done in other spheres of endeavour, as a result of clear, unambiguous leadership and enormous ambition.

To the critics, rankings are also unacceptable because they can be "gamed". In other words, Universities can pick on specific criteria, and manipulate their budgets and systems to make superficial gains in particular areas simply to obtain better rankings. A vast international market has developed for "star" academics, (a market from which we are almost entirely excluded, for financial and other reasons).

For example many Universities now set aside huge budgets to "buy" the best academics, as though they were star football players, give them privileged niche jobs, and tell them simply to produce outstanding research published in the best places. In some cases they stand out as unusual markers of excellence, while the rest of the University continues along a mediocre path. 

But this is not always the case.  If the University concerned makes shrewd use of its ‘star" academics, and does more than simply "buy" people, they can act as catalysts instead, galvanizing the rest of the University. At the University of Queensland, for example, an Australian University which has moved astonishingly up the rankings, these brilliant people were placed in huge new research Institutes, which they were tasked to develop and expand, with extraordinary results for the whole University, for generations of senior students, and the State of Queensland itself.

Our Universities and the various institutions which serve and manage them, have become mired in fruitless and paralyzing debates about these criticisms. And the ranking competitions continue throughout the world without our taking them particularly seriously. Every year, relentlessly, the rankings are issued; and every year, we fail to make any significant showing.

It is as though, year after year, the Rugby World Cup was played and the winners announced, while we refused to enter until our concerns about the nature of the competition were met. This is patently silly, and will increasingly mark us as a backwater of University excellence as the rankings become common currency, referred to by students looking for places to study, staff looking for jobs, and funders looking to give support.

There is only one grown-up response we can have to all of this:  if you can't beat them join them. We have to put aside our preciousness and enter the game wholeheartedly and with our eyes open. For this, we would need clear leadership to be given from both Government and University leadership. We would need to look at our top research universities, say the top 6.

They have massive unrealized potential, but generally lack the kind of vision and ambition you need to make a real impact on the rankings. We would need the wholehearted support of our Government and our Provinces, both of which would stand to gain from having world-renowned Universities in their midst.

We would need to decide what precisely we were aiming for. Harvard might be the gold standard, but given that it has an endowment the equivalent of 1% of the US GDP, it would be somewhat our of our reach! But why can we not do what the University of Queensland has done; or the University of Beijing; or the University of Singapore?

Twenty years ago, none of these three were considered of world standard - and indeed thirty years ago, Wits and UCT would have been thought of as their superiors. Now the situation is reversed and likely to get worse. While dozens of countries are pursuing the improvement of their universities, we continue to debate and fuss.

We will continue to languish, at best, amongst the top 200, or top 300, or top 500 Universities. Instead, we should have at least two Universities in the top 100, and one of these should be aiming for the top 50. A further four should be moving up rapidly so that they reach the top 200.

Having this kind of ambition is no joke. It cannot be realized through more of the same. We would need dedicated funding to be directed towards the best Universities, and a clear plan of action as to where precisely such funding would be located.

The paralyzing tall poppy syndrome which besets the ANC-led government, where the best universities are treated with scepticism, and their meagre savings coveted, would have to be tackled. And the hypocrisy of our ANC leaders, who send their children to UCT and Wits on the one hand, but preach a faux anti-elitism on the other, would need to end.

If nothing is done, the end result will be the Nigerianisation of our University system, where the elite no longer bother with the neglected local universities and send their children to the top Universities in Europe and the US. The signs that this is already happening amongst the white upper-middle classes are there. When it starts to happen wholesale amongst the black elite, we will know that we have doomed our Universities to eternal mediocrity.

Belinda Bozzoli is DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training 

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