University of Yaounde I ranked 29th in Africa

Specialists of higher education in Africa listed the 30 best universities of which the University of Yaounde I ranked 29th in the continent.

It was at the Summit of African Universities held on July 30 and 31 in South Africa. The ranking of universities was prepared on the basis of defined criteria.

According to Times Higher Education, it was made using Elsevier's Scopus database, the largest database which contains the number of times a scientific or academic article has been cited by other academic institutions.

According to the site, Times Higher Education (THE), based in London and known for its credible rankings of the best universities in the world, the list was not published arbitrarily.

THE editor, Phil Baty, said: "This is an experimental and preliminary ranking based only on research; that is to say how many times a scientific article has been cited by other academies. When we develop a comprehensive ranking of African universities, we hope to add more indicators to it; taking into account elements such as the economic contribution of the university, civic engagement and of course its training.”

In this ranking, South Africa and Egypt had the highest entries with 11 and 10 universities represented respectively. Morocco, Tunisia and Cameroon were the only Francophone countries represented and respectively occupied the 10th, 20th and 29th ranks.

University of Cape Town was ranked first. It was followed by its rival, the University of Witwatersrand. In third place was Makerere University in Uganda which shook the protocol. Makerere University prevents South African universities from monopolizing the ranking as they usually appear in the first five of the ranking.

It was followed by two other South African universities: Stellenbosch and Kwaza- Zulu.