PH universities slipped down Times' world rankings

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 28) — The Philippines’ top universities have slipped down the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings, the world’s prestigious academic league table.

Ateneo de Manila University remained as the top university in the country, but it slid down from last year's 351-400 bracket to 1,001 – 1,200.

University of the Philippines dropped from 801-1,000 to 1,201-1,500 while De La Salle University fell from 1201-1500 to 1501+.

Meanwhile, University of Santo Tomas made it to the list for the first time, tying with DLSU at the 1501+ bracket.

Mapua University, which made it to the list last year, was only given a "reporter" status this year.

According to THE, a reporter status means that the school “provided data but did not meet our eligibility criteria to receive a rank, and agreed to be displayed as a reporter in the final table.”

Nine Philippine universities also received "reporter" status: Cebu Technological University, Central Luzon State University, University of Eastern Philippines, Mariano Marcos State University, Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology, Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, University of Southern Philippines, Tarlac State University, and Visayas State University.

The British higher education magazine based the rankings on 18 performance metrics which measure an institution’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

The latest list also analyzed 16.5 million research publications and survey responses from 68,042 scholars worldwide.

The University of Oxford in England is still the world’s top university in the rankings for the eighth straight year.