{"id":124363,"date":"2016-05-23T13:40:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T11:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=124363"},"modified":"2016-05-23T13:42:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T11:42:04","slug":"the-best-universities-for-maths-and-science-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/124363\/the-best-universities-for-maths-and-science-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The best universities for maths and science in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the World Economic Forum, South Africa has the worst maths and science skills in the world<\/a> – but that hasn’t stopped individuals from excelling in the field<\/a>, nor South African institutions from shining through.<\/p>\n

The CWTS Leiden Ranking <\/a>for 2016 shows which institutions had the best scientific performance out of over 800 major universities worldwide – with five South African universities making the cut.<\/p>\n

The ranking is based exclusively on bibliographic data from the Web of Science database produced by Thomson Reuters, across a number of science indices, including maths, science, social science and arts and humanities.<\/p>\n

The overall ranking works by not only looking at the amount of published work, but also how often a university’s work is cited in relation to other published work on the same or similar subject.<\/p>\n

Leiden enriches the data through its own citation matching processes and assigning research to universities in the most consistent and accurate way possible.<\/p>\n

“Universities may be referred to using many different name variants, and the definition and delimitation of universities is not obvious at all,” it said.<\/p>\n

Notably, the ranking does not take into account conference proceedings publications and book publications.<\/p>\n

Overall, four of the five ranked SA institutes are within the top 500, with the University of Pretoria narrowly missing out, at 512th.<\/p>\n

As with all (except one) university rankings in the country, the University of Cape Town is once again ranked as the best university in South Africa, ranked 378th overall.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
G#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
378<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n2681<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
447<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n2293<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
468<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n2189<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
472<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n2184<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
512<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n1947<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

However, when looking at the different fields of science, it becomes clear that each of the top science universities in the country have their own forte.<\/p>\n

UCT excels at the biomedical and social sciences, but the University of KwaZulu Natal (2nd in SA and 447th overall) ranks top for physical science and engineering.<\/p>\n

In terms of mathematics and computers, the University of Pretoria is ranked as the best university in the country.<\/p>\n

The following tables show the best universities based on the field of science, as well as the top and bottom score range on the global scale.<\/p>\n

Biomedical sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"UCT<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ZA#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n1160<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n840<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n726<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n601<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n497<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Life and earth sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Stellies\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ZA#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n721<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n689<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n684<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n598<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n362<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mathematics and\u00a0computer sciences<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"University<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ZA#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n150<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n138<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n125<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Physical science and engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"UKZN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ZA#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n710<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n565<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n464<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n433<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n337<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Social Sciences and humanities<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"University<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ZA#<\/th>\nUniversity<\/th>\nScore<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nUniversity of Cape Town<\/td>\n358<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand<\/td>\n268<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nUniversity of Pretoria<\/td>\n224<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nUniversity of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>\n173<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nStellenbosch University<\/td>\n172<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

More on maths and science in SA<\/h3>\n

South African student scores highest maths mark in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Only four out of 10 SA matrics will write maths this year<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly 1,500 senior public schools in SA do not offer maths<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SA bottom of global maths and science list<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite having a reputation for having the worst maths and science skills in the world, these five South African universities have put the country on the map for their research in the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":124581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,8071,5265],"class_list":["post-124363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline","tag-maths","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124583,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124363\/revisions\/124583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}