Subject rankings dominated by South Africa and Egypt

South Africa secured the most placements in Africa in the 15th edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject with 176 entries at 12 universities, an increase from 153 entries last year.

Egypt was second on the continent, with 15 universities achieving 162 entries, and Nigeria third, with three universities posting eight entries.

Two institutions in Ghana had seven entries, one university in Uganda had five, and two institutions in Kenya registered three entries. Other African countries represented in the rankings were Ethiopia, which had two entries, while Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe each had one entry.

South Africa and Egypt had the highest number of improved placings, each with 51 entries higher than last year’s positioning in the subject rankings. In total, 40 African universities were assessed among 1,700 universities in over 100 locations worldwide.

Subject areas in the top 20

The 2025 rankings were based on 55 academic disciplines across five broad faculty areas, including arts and humanities, engineering and technology, life sciences and medicine, natural sciences, and social sciences and management.

According to datasets, South Africa was the only African country with entries in the top 20 globally. The mineral and mining engineering entry from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) was in 11th position, the best ranking of any African university in any subject. The second-highest subject ranking on the continent was development studies at the University of Cape Town (UCT), ranked 15th worldwide.

South Africa had four entries in the top 50 globally, joined by Egypt and Uganda, each with an entry, while Ghana had one entry that featured in the top 100. In total, Africa had 27 entries in the top 100, 88 in the top 200, and 298 in the top 500.

Commenting on the South African performance in those rankings, Ben Sowter, the senior vice-president at Quacquarelli Symonds, the higher education analyst and education data services provider, [said] the country had almost seven times as many entries as the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. “South Africa is the standout performer in Sub-Saharan Africa, with 51 of its 176 entries improving its ranking this year,” he said.

Narrow academic disciplines

According to Sowter, South Africa is also home to almost all of the narrow academic disciplines in which universities in the region feature. In this regard, South African universities with more than 25 entries, irrespective of nominal placements were UCT (39), Wits (32), the University of Pretoria (UP) (27), Stellenbosch University (SU) (27), and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) (25).

UCT was Africa’s most highly ranked institution, leading in 34 subject areas. In the broad faculty category, it ranked 102nd in life sciences and medicine, 174th in arts and humanities, 212th in social sciences and management, 233rd in natural sciences and 282nd in engineering and technology.

Subsequently, whereas UCT was in the 15th position worldwide in development studies, it was highly ranked in several other narrow subject fields, including medicine, at the 99th position.

According to the QS international higher education experts, UCT recorded a sound performance in anthropology, which was placed in the band of 51-100, geography, geophysics, geology, hospitality and leisure management, and English language and literature, all of which were in the band of 101-150. The university’s anatomy and physiology was placed in the 101-170 band.

Other areas of achievement

Other South African universities that performed well in narrow subjects included UP in veterinary science (51-100) and SU, whose theology, divinity, and religious discipline were placed in the 101-150 band.

Medicine, physics and astronomy represented the most narrow discipline entries across the South African higher education spectrum. For the first time, South African universities featured in politics and international studies, anatomy and physiology, and civil and structural engineering.

However, the best-ranked university in Sub-Saharan Africa outside South Africa was Uganda’s Makerere University, which was ranked 46th worldwide for its development studies, while the University of Ghana was ranked 51-100 in the same subject area. The University of Ibadan’s petroleum engineering was the highest-ranked entry in Nigeria, appearing in the 151-170 band.

According to QS, medicine, agriculture, and forestry were the top-ranked entries from Sub-Saharan Africa. Alongside good performance by the South African universities in life sciences and medicine, Ibadan also increased its ranking this year in that broad subject entry to the 451-500 band.

The medicine entry from Kenya’s University of Nairobi also rose to the 451-500 band, while Kenyatta University’s entry in medicine retained its last year’s position, according to the briefing from QS.

The briefing noted that medicine entries, notably from Ethiopia’s University of Addis Ababa and the University of Zimbabwe, dropped marginally in ranking this year, while the University of Zimbabwe’s entry in the same field maintained its position at 651-700.

However, there are concerns that, while agriculture and forestry were popular subjects in Sub-Saharan Africa, at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania, the ranking in that field dropped to 351-400.

Other worries are that, while the number of entries increased in South Africa and Nigeria, elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa there was a decline in other countries. For instance, in addition to remaining stable in Kenya or dropping in ranking in Ethiopia, entries fell in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

More catch-up needed

Highlighting the problem, Sowter noted that, by 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will be the only place in the world where the working age population is expected to continue growing: “This makes it critical that the right higher education ecosystems are in place for future learners and industries that will need talent.”

Nevertheless, he stated that, while the rankings show that some entries in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to innovate and improve in quality, there are indicators that much more needs to be done to catch up with tertiary education systems in the rest of the world.

According to the QS briefing, the rankings were based on five performance indicators: academic and employer reputation based on a global survey of over 175,000 academics and 100,000 employers, research citations per paper, h-index, and international research network. In this regard, the h-index is a metric measuring an author’s productivity and scientific impact, defined as the highest number of publications produced and considering the number of times other authors have cited the articles.

In this context, South Africa had the 17th-highest ratio of employer reputation in the rankings, an indicator that employers were increasingly satisfied with graduates from South African universities.

“Scores from other metrics suggested research carried out at South Africa’s universities is increasingly cited by other researchers and has impact,” stated the briefing issued on 12 March.

On the international scene, United States universities led in 32 subjects, with Harvard University emerging as the world’s strongest-performing institution, ranking first in 15 disciplines.