KARACHI: Out of the 186 universities recognised by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, only four have made it to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018.

The two top spots were secured by the University of Oxford and Camb­ridge university with the California Institute of Technology claiming the third place, according to the 14th annual edition of the rankings.

The Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad secured a spot in the 401-500 band — which is an improvement from their ranking last year as they were in the 601-800 top universities group.

This year, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology and the National University of Sciences and Technology were in the 601-800 band while the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad secured a place in the 801-1,000 group.

The rankings reflect a decline from last year’s list which had seven Pakistani institutes, including Karachi University and University of Lahore, among the top 1,000 in the world.

This year Pakistan also fell far behind its neighbours — 60 institutions from China, 30 from India and 11 from Iran were on the list.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2017