Andres Oppenheimer, in the Miami Herald, notes that none of the international university rankings lists a Latin American university among the top one hundred schools. Oppenheimer’s dismayed that Latin America’s response to this result has been to form its own ranking agency, just for its region.
[C]reating a regional ranking that will essentially help make the region’s universities look good is a mistake.
… [T]he region should use [the rankings] as a mobilizing factor to modernize and internationalize its schools, as is already happening in a few major universities in the region.
In China, the communist government has officially set the goal of “internationalizing” its higher education, and has embraced these global rankings with a passion. Latin America should do the same.
Doing the opposite will be the equivalent of withdrawing from the soccer World Cup to compete only within the neighborhood.
March 26th, 2012 at 2:42AM
[…] is a very bad response to international university rankings, as Andres Oppenheimer pointed out not long ago in the Miami Herald. He was lamenting Latin America’s decision to […]