U-SAY

From Zainub Qadir

With reference to the article ISLAMIC STATES: Network to improve quality assurance, Hassanuddeen Abd Aziz, head of the Quality Assurance Unit said that out of 1,700 universities in the Islamic World, only Istanbul University of Turkey was included in the top 500 in the last academic ranking of world universities.

With due respect, the fact is that last year 19 universities within the Islamic world were among the 500 top universities of the world (www.topuniversities.com).

The National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan and the Istanbul University of Turkey stood on the same rank at 376.

As an evidence, here is the list of universities from the Islamic world which were ranked among top 500 by THE-QS:

Universities of Islamic World

2008 Rank 2007 Rank School Name Islamic Country
230 246= Universiti MALAYA (UM) Malaysia
250 309= Universiti Kebangsaan MALAYSIA (UKM) Malaysia
287 395 University of INDONESIA Indonesia
313 307= Universiti Sains MALAYSIA (USM) Malaysia
315 369= BANDUNG Institute of Technology Indonesia
316 360= Universitas GADJAH MADA Indonesia
320 364= Universiti Putra MALAYSIA (UPM) Malaysia
338 - KING FAHD University of Petroleum & Mine... Saudi Arabia
356 401-500 Universiti Teknologi MALAYSIA (UTM) Malaysia
374 401-500 ISTANBUL Technical University Turkey
376 401-500 National University of Sciences and Tech... Pakistan
376 390 ISTANBUL University Turkey
408 CAIRO University Egypt
432 KOC University Turkey
437 SABANCI University Turkey
440 University of LAHORE Pakistan
469 CUKUROVA University Turkey
479 University of TEHRAN Iran
490 University of CAMBRIDGE United Arab Emirates
496 AIRLANGGA University Indonesia

Editor's note: The information in the news report was drawn from the top 500 rankings prepared by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University last year and not that published by the THE-QS group.