What you should know about South Africa’s 5 best universities

With five global university rankings released for 2015, an overview of where each ranked university placed shows which institutes are rated the best overall in the country.
Having placed first in four of the five rankings, it’s no surprise that the University of Cape Town reigns as South Africa’s best university.
The only ranking which did not place UCT at number one in South Africa was the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), which gave the honour to Wits.
Wits placed a consistent second, although it lost out to Stellenbosch University for the first time in the Times Higher Education rankings, which placed the Joburg university third.
Each global ranking uses different indicators with different final score weighting to determine the top institutes, and so reflect different levels of excellence.
Thus, the table below does not reflect the intricacies of each ranking, but serves to provide a “ranking overview” of how south African universities performed.
The index works on a score system, where each ranked university is assigned points according to rank, relative to the number of universities listed.
Thus, a university ranked sixth out of six will have a reflectively lower score (1.7 points), compared to a university ranked sixth out of nine (5.5 points).
If a university did not appear in a ranking, it receives 0 points.
University | QSWUR | THE | BGU | CWUR | ARWU | Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
University of Cape Town | 1st | 1st | 1st | 2nd | 1st | 9.6 |
University of the Witwatersrand | 3rd | 2nd | 2nd | 1st | 2nd | 8.4 |
Stellenbosch University | 2nd | 3rd | 3rd | 3rd | 4th | 6.1 |
University of KwaZulu-Natal | 6th | 4th | 4th | 4th | 3rd | 4.9 |
University of Pretoria | 5th | 5th | 5th | 5th | – | 2.6 |
Rhodes University | 4th | – | – | – | – | 1.3 |
University of Johannesburg | 7th | – | 6th | – | – | 1.0 |
North West University | 8th | – | – | – | – | 0.4 |
University of South Africa | – | 6th | – | – | – | 0.3 |
University of the Western Cape | 9th | – | – | – | – | 0.2 |
The top 5
The top five universities have a combined 133,096 students in the 2015 academic year, and a combined academic staff contingent of 6,962. 12,277 – or 9.2% of all students are international students.
While ranked as the country’s 5th university overall, the University of Pretoria accommodates far more students than any other university in the top 5.
UP has 37,314 students, according to the data, including 3,122 international students. With total academic staff at 1,870, this equates to 20 students per staff member.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal is the second biggest with 30,572 students, followed by Wits (23,321), Stellenbosch University (21,849) and finally UCT (20,040).
On average, the top 5 universities have a student to lecturer ratio of 19:1. UKZN has the highest number of students per teacher (25), while UCT has the lowest (12).
UCT had the highest number of international students, accounting for 30% of all foreign students. 18% of UCT students come from other countries.
Students and Staff
University | Students | International Students | % International |
---|---|---|---|
University of Pretoria | 37 314 | 3 122 | 8.4% |
University of KwaZulu-Natal | 30 572 | 1 715 | 5.6% |
University of the Witwatersrand | 23 321 | 2 072 | 8.0% |
Stellenbosch University | 21 849 | 1 753 | 8.9% |
University of Cape Town | 20 040 | 3 615 | 18.0% |
Total | 133 096 | 12 277 | 9.2% |
Degrees
The BGU also provides data on the number of graduates from each university in 2014/15.
In total, there were 22,886 undergraduate degrees issued, 6,071 masters degrees, and 1,099 doctorates.
Being the largest university by student numbers, there’s no surprise that the University of Pretoria accounts for the most graduates in each category.
However, Stellenbosch university had the second highest number of masters and doctorate degrees.
Undergraduate
University | Degrees | % of total |
---|---|---|
University of Pretoria | 6 509 | 28.4% |
University of KwaZulu-Natal | 5 543 | 24.2% |
University of the Witwatersrand | 3 980 | 17.4% |
Stellenbosch University | 3 544 | 15.5% |
University of Cape Town | 3 310 | 14.5% |
Total | 22 886 |
Masters
University | Degrees | % of total |
---|---|---|
University of Pretoria | 1 476 | 24.3% |
Stellenbosch University | 1 305 | 21.5% |
University of the Witwatersrand | 1 219 | 20.1% |
University of Cape Town | 1 209 | 19.9% |
University of KwaZulu-Natal | 862 | 14.2% |
Total | 6 071 |
Doctorates
University | Degrees | % of total |
---|---|---|
University of Pretoria | 242 | 22.0% |
Stellenbosch University | 224 | 20.4% |
University of the Witwatersrand | 221 | 20.1% |
University of KwaZulu-Natal | 207 | 18.8% |
University of Cape Town | 205 | 18.7% |
Total | 1 099 |
For more details on the global university rankings you can check out these articles:
- 2015 QS World University Rankings (QSWUR)
- Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2015-2016
- 2015 Best Global Universities ranking (BGU)
- Center for World University Rankings 2015 (CWUR)
- 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)
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