Recently, Nanjing University has made it clear that it rejects international rankings. In the “Notice of the Nanjing University Committee of the Communist Party of China on the 7th round of inspections, rectification and improvement of the 19th Central Committee” released on April 15, NTU said that in the “14th Five-Year Plan” of Nanjing University and “Nanjing University “Double” In the compilation of the “Overall Construction Plan for the Construction of First-Class Colleges and Universities”, international rankings are no longer used as important construction goals for school development and discipline construction.
Once, as the first domestic university to introduce SCI “foreign indicators”, NTU is now the first to release the signal of jumping out of the university rankings. With the trend of world university rankings being increasingly criticized, NTU’s move will undoubtedly be a good start.
The World University Rankings emerged from the wave of study abroad since the 20th century. With the continuous expansion of influence, it has promoted the development of domestic universities to a certain extent. At present, there are four major international rankings, namely, the British Times World University Rankings, the British QS World University Rankings, the American USNews World University Rankings, and the China Soft Science World University Academic Rankings.
These world university rankings play a positive role in many ways. For colleges and universities to improve the quality of their own development, the international ranking is a direct reference index. The ranking can reflect the achievements of discipline construction, scientific research level, teaching quality and other aspects to a certain extent, so as to provide a reference for colleges and universities to formulate targeted improvement measures. At the same time, ranking plays an important role in obtaining school resources and talent introduction. In addition, ranking is also an important consideration for colleges and universities to carry out brand operation and enrollment promotion. Therefore, the essence of university rankings is a reference for universities to evaluate and reflect on themselves, and at the same time, it is also a favorable means to enhance the reputation of schools and obtain resources for running schools.
For the public, especially student groups, international rankings can provide effective information for their studies. In addition, international rankings are also an important reference factor in corporate recruitment.
However, under the logic of “ranking” game competition, we have now seen that many strange phenomena and chaos brought about by international rankings have been exposed. where is the problem?
The indicator system varies greatly and it is difficult to reflect the true level
At present, among some mainstream international rankings, the evaluation criteria are quite different, so it is difficult to fully and truly reflect the level of universities.
For example, in the QS World University Rankings, the indicator of “academic reputation” accounts for as high as 40%. The ranking of soft subjects pays more attention to the scientific research of school teachers, such as the number of teachers who have won Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals. In the evaluation criteria of the Times ranking, teaching, research and paper citations have the highest weights, accounting for 30%. Among the main evaluation indicators of the USNews American Comprehensive University Rankings, reputation (including global research reputation 12.5% and regional research reputation 12.5%) is the one with the highest weight.
Legend: USNews ranking indicators
Legend: ranking evaluation indicators of soft science
The existence of differences in these evaluation indicators has led colleges and universities to choose certain indicators with higher rankings for publicity, so the rankings cannot reflect the real comprehensive strength of the school.
Certain evaluation criteria cause public criticism
The indicator of “internationalization” is commonly seen in the evaluation systems of major rankings, and it is also an indicator that has been questioned by the public.
For a long time, there have been many remarks such as “favoring foreigners” and “super-national treatment”, but this phenomenon has been questioned many times, but it has not improved. The fundamental reason is that the international student rate will affect the school’s international ranking. Moreover, compared with other indicators that are more directly related to the scientific research level of universities, the indicator of the proportion of international students is easier to operate and achieve. Therefore, it seems “natural” that colleges and universities spend a lot of money to recruit international students and provide them with treatment that exceeds that of domestic students.
In order to avoid this phenomenon and no longer cause psychological harm to Chinese students, we must say “no” to the international rankings that value the rate of international students.
Fake buying list, international rankings are already “rotten”
In order to get a good position in the ranking competition, some universities have even spent money on the rankings and falsified data. A series of improper behaviors have reduced the credibility of the international rankings and damaged the reputation of the schools themselves. For example, in March of this year, Columbia University in the United States was exposed to provide false data to USNews. However, how can such deceptive operations actually help improve the school’s practical ability to run schools?
Put the cart before the horse, lose the original intention of running a school and educating people
Under the “baton” of international rankings, colleges and universities appear impetuous and blind in all aspects of their own development plans. Ranking is linked to resource allocation, and ranking is used to guide discipline construction, which leads to uneven development of disciplines.
In this ranking-chasing game, a lot of time and money is spent on improving rankings, and pure research and teaching are left out. People who really want to calm down and do scientific research have to be swayed by the trend of utilitarianism, and irrigation and academic misconduct are also common.
At the same time, the quality of teaching in the university is also hurt. From the ranking, we have no way of knowing how teachers are doing in class and what students have learned. Factors that truly reflect the quality of school running are ignored.
Nanjing University’s rejection of international rankings is a good start.
Rejecting rankings essentially rejects the blind pursuit of simple indicators, and instead returns to the essence of university teaching and educating people.
According to the “Nanjing Morning News” report, Professor Cao Taisheng, Deputy Dean of the Education Research Institute of Nanjing University, expressed his attitude towards the international rankings:
“The international rankings represent the society’s evaluation of schools to a certain extent, and are widely disseminated, often having a great impact. Therefore, many domestic colleges and universities are particularly concerned.” Cao Taisheng believes that, in a sense, many colleges and universities are Being “led by the nose” by the international rankings, we pursue the explicit and one-sided indicators too much, but ignore the most important educating function of education. “Education is a systematic project. Using the simplistic indicators of the ranking list as a guide will inevitably lead to the direction of running a university.”
Whether it is the adverse effects of the university rankings or the statement made by NTU this time, it has begun to urge everyone to view the rankings in a correct way and make rational reflections on the competition of university rankings.
Today, the popularity of international rankings and their credibility in the eyes of the public are not as good as they used to be, but saying no to “rankings” is not something that can be done overnight. Whether it is for universities or the public, “ranking thinking” is deeply ingrained, and it will be a long process to remove the “kidnapping” of rankings, and there are still many issues to be explored.
Rejecting international rankings does not mean rejecting all evaluations. Explicit rankings can be ignored, but implicit rankings still exist. In essence, all parties need evaluation to implement various decisions. Universities need some indicators to establish their own image, and the public also needs some references to gain recognition of colleges and universities. Know. After unbundling with international rankings, Chinese universities still need to establish their own evaluation standards. Double first-class construction and subject evaluation are both good attempts to dilute the awareness of ranking, but in any case, ranking will be a reference standard after all. dispute.
Going for rankings has at least become the consensus of more and more people. NTU’s rejection of international rankings has also gained a lot of approval and support at the public level. But in action, after Nanjing University rejected the international ranking, will other universities follow suit? In fact, some other universities have previously expressed their stance on rejecting rankings. For example, Renmin University of China proposed in 2020 that it will no longer provide data to any world university ranking companies from 2022. In 2021, Lanzhou University voluntarily dropped out of the Times World University Rankings.
Of course, whether a university refuses to be ranked will take into account its own level. Generally speaking, excellent universities are more likely not to pay attention to rankings, while those relatively low-ranking universities tend to pay attention to rankings to gain resources and reputation. Therefore, in a short period of time, the overall state of domestic colleges and universities participating in the ranking competition will not change much, just as “985” and “211” have not been quickly replaced by “double first-class”.
Whether NTU’s withdrawal from the “group chat” of the international rankings this time will become a weather vane, and whether Chinese universities will soon usher in a wave of “dropping out”, let us wait and see.