KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

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SINGAPORE: The National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) rank among the global top 10 for 15 subjects, according to the 2016 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject.

NUS, which was ranked 12th overall in last year's QS World University Rankings, was placed among the world’s 10 best universities for 13 subjects:

Engineering - Civil & Structural (3rd in the world)
Engineering - Chemical (5)
Engineering - Electrical & Electronic (6)
Chemistry (7)
Social Policy & Administration (7)
Materials Science (8)
Statistics & Operational Research (8)
Engineering - Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing (8)
Architecture / Built Environment (9)
Geography (9)
Computer Science & Information Systems (9)
Pharmacy & Pharmacology (9)
Environmental Sciences (10)

NUS also made the top 30 worldwide for a total of 33 subjects, and is the top performing Asian university in 25 of the subjects ranked.

Professor Tan Eng Chye, NUS Provost and deputy president (Academic Affairs), said the university was particularly honoured to be among the world’s top five for Civil and Structural Engineering and Chemical Engineering.

"As Singapore builds up world-class research capabilities in areas that are critical to the nation and the economy, NUS is well-poised to contribute its leading expertise to address national challenges and improve lives of Singaporeans," he added.

Meanwhile, NTU ranked in the global top 10 for Materials Science (6th in the world) and Electrical and Electronic Engineering (8th). It was also in the top 50 for 19 subjects in total, and is the regional leader in materials science, it said.

NTU president Professor Bertil Andersson said the rankings reaffirm the university's rising strengths across a range of disciplines.

"NTU started out as a primarily engineering university but we now also excel in science, business, education, and the arts and social sciences, all within a short period of time," he said.

For the upcoming academic year in August, the university is introducing 16 new undergraduate offerings - including nine degree programmes in business, engineering and science, and seven double majors that combine the arts, social sciences and business.

Only universities from the United Kingdom and the United States take more top-10 spots than NUS and NTU combined.

”Singapore has established itself as one of the world’s leading education and research hub and continues to shine in our global analysis," head of the QS Intelligence Unit Ben Sowter said.

The annual subject rankings are based on surveyed opinions of 76,798 academics and 44,426 employers, alongside analysis of 28.5 million research papers and more than 113 million citations.

- CNA/mz

There is no dispute that NUS and NTU are reputable universities. However such rankings tell us nothing about the teaching quality.
Heard of feedback from some students in top universities that the professors are busy doing research and writing papers than teaching. Hence the students are very much left on their own to self-study.

doodley wrote:There is no dispute that NUS and NTU are reputable universities. However such rankings tell us nothing about the teaching quality.
Heard of feedback from some students in top universities that the professors are busy doing research and writing papers than teaching. Hence the students are very much left on their own to self-study.

Depends on what you want, I guess. For some students, having minimal supervision and direct teaching and having to self-learn is a great education in itself.

doodley wrote:There is no dispute that NUS and NTU are reputable universities. However such rankings tell us nothing about the teaching quality.
Heard of feedback from some students in top universities that the professors are busy doing research and writing papers than teaching. Hence the students are very much left on their own to self-study.

Indeed. But nitty-gritty details like teaching quality won't be employers' business. Uni rankings, or layman's perception of uni's reputation, do matter in certain sectors.

For the largest employer in Singapore, namely, the ministries and stat boards (and maybe some GLCs and NGOs), fresh uni grads from NUS, NTU and SMU are accorded the same 'standing', i.e. they will be shortlisted regardless of their alma mater and will be duly recruited if they possess the degree and skills relevant to the job. There's also no wage discrimination.

But in selected private sectors, I notice most "ill-read" or "ill-informed" HR line managers, i.e. those directly responsible for sieving through thousands of CVs for Department Heads to peruse, are still frozen in their own time, holding the 90s perception that NUS was No.1 and NTU was trailing not too far behind. Therefore, those who graduated from NUS law are perceived to be "smarter" than those from SMU by some CV-shortlisters. And those who graduated from NTU Accountancy are deemed "better" than those from SMU and UniSim.

Similarly, many recruiters & employers in the region are not familiar with our local unis, particularly, SMU and the newer ones. Conversely, they hold the perception that NUS is the state nation's No. 1 tertiary institution, hence tend to hold higher regard for any Singaporean jobseekers who were from NUS. In fact, they often loosely equate NUS to Peking, Tokyo, Taipei and HK U which are the No.1 unis in their respective countries. NTU by sheer virtue of the word "Technological" in its name, tends to give overseas recruiters the misconception it's the secondary tech uni in Singapore, akin to HKU of Science & Tech, as SMU is akin to HK City U, and so on.

For those intending to pursue a post-grad degree in the West, i.e. after attaining their local degrees here, do note some overseas colleges admissions/professors may or may not be too familiar with uni rankings in Southeast Asia either. But many of them would have heard of NUS.

Rankings should be taken with a pinch of salt....