China could participate in the advent of a new international ranking of universities, under the impetus of Russia and South Africa. The countries forming the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – announced their desire to create their own rankings on July 17, following a summit of education ministers in South Africa. South. A dispatch from the Russian agency Sputnik echoed this project which, according to its designers, “shall not suffer any influence”.
“Russian universities face restrictions on their participation in existing international rankings for political reasonsexplained Konstantin Mogilevski, Russian Deputy Minister of Education and Science, quoted by Sputnik. No university is immune to such actions by Western countries. This is why the global education community must create a new ranking, based on objective data and enjoying universal confidence. »
This ranking claims to highlight “qualitative indicators” who will take into account “particularities of the BRICS education systems”. A common regulatory framework for the recognition of diplomas could also be defined, in order to remove administrative barriers to continuing education, according to Sputnik.
Chinese establishments still on the Shanghai list
The BRICS initiative, although still in its infancy, resonates with the intentions of Chinese President Xi Jinping. During a visit to the People’s University in Beijing on April 25, 2022, the Chairman-Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China said that China should no longer measure its universities against others, in particular American, but decide for itself the criteria of excellence that should prevail within the establishments.
A few days later, on May 9, the People’s University and those of Lanzhou and Nanjing (one of the top ten Chinese universities, in the 101e-150eof the Shanghai ranking in 2021) had announced their intention to withdraw from the international rankings. A year later, the three establishments are still on the list. “None of these universities have officially announced their removal from the rankings., affirms to World Ying Cheng, general manager of ShanghaiRanking, the consultancy company that carries out the Shanghai ranking, who mentions a “fake news” and nuance: “Nanjing University just indicated that it did not take our ranking into account. »