The International League Tables of Universities

Inadequate funding, too many students, lack of career prospects for graduates…: the French universities appear to amass criticisms and blockages. Following Jean-Jacques Salomon’s article last month on the “strangling of the French universities”, this month Futuribles has invited Bertrand Bellon, a professor of economics in Paris, to give his views.
The principle of marking and ranking is part and parcel of the education system, he points out, and the universities themselves cannot escape it: several international league tables are now generally accepted guides to quality. In them, the French universities come in the middle of the rankings and not one figures among the top institutions, traditionally a monopoly of American universities. This suggests, Bertrand Bellon argues, that we should examine the reasons behind the mismatch between the criteria used in drawing up these rankings and those given priority by the French higher education system.
This shows, he says, that what dominates the rankings are criteria based on reputation (those of the Times, the Times Higher Education Supplement) or production and influence of academic research (those of Jiao Tong University in Shanghai and the Internet site Webometrics); these award France a ranking that is “reasonable” given its size and the level of international competition.
Nevertheless, Bertrand Bellon stresses, the present international university league tables are too selective and subjective to justify their role in selecting the best universities in the world.
Consequently he puts forward two ways of improving the league tables: offer different rankings that take account of other aspects of the universities, or give greater weight in the evaluations to how far an institution’s results are consistent with its aims and means. In conclusion, he acknowledges that it is obvious that the performance of the French universities in the rankings highlights certain problems peculiar to the French system which it would not be helpful to disguise by using different rankings.