Evaluation of the indicators used in ranking higher education in South Africa

Abstract

The practices of neoliberalism and managerialism in ranking higher education in South Africa include performance-based evaluations and efforts to optimise, frame and regulate the life of academics (Morrissey, 2015). In the context of ranking indicators, neoliberalism and managerialism mean higher education institutions operate like consumer-oriented corporate institutions that define education as a market commodity. The neo-liberalistic and managerial factors of rankings tend to commercialise and corporatise institutions of higher learning by reframing their orientation and purposes. The problem around these ideologies speaks to the complexity of indicators used in ranking higher education globally and in South Africa. In essence, this means implicitly that anyone who is educated is market-led. This study is limited to evaluating the indicators used in ranking higher education in South Africa. The researcher used desk research to gather information on ranking indicators from QS World University Rankings reports between 2012 and 2020. A quantitative analysis of secondary data was conducted to conclude the implications of indicators used in ranking higher education in South Africa. Error Correction Modelling and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square were employed to estimate the study's objective. The statistical analysis of indicators, weighting, and ranking South African higher education institutions between 2012 and 2020 present descriptive outputs such as mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and Jarque-Beta statistics. Essentially, the analysis also includes whether the conditions for testing for co-integration (Augmented Dickey-Fuller Unit Root) have been met. A major finding from the data is that the size of a university may not contribute to its academic reputation.