Rankings: Marketing Mana or Menace?

This paper and conference session examine global university ranking and the implications for New Zealand Institutions. Global rankings commenced only in 2003, but they are already much present in public discussion, government thinking, marketing strategies, and university development strategies. There are two principal rankings systems, each covering universities as a whole and also most of the principal broad fields of study. These are issued annually by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education, which focuses only on research performance; and the Times Higher, which provide a hierarchy of the ‘world’s best universities’ according to a composite set of criteria. The paper is in three main sections. First it reports on where New Zealand higher education sits in the world, according to comparative educational indicators. This provides a backdrop against which the rankings data, and the larger strategic problem of New Zealand’s global position that is entailed in them, are considered. The position of New Zealand is similar to that of Australia: stronger in school standards than in tertiary participation rates, a successful exporter despite recent fluctuations, though tucked into a specialized and vulnerable first degree niche in the global market, the basis for comprehensive research provision but underinvestment in research, which prevents the strongest universities from becoming more globally competitive. Second, the paper looks at the way the two main global rankings systems work and how New Zealand performs under each. Third, the paper considers responses to the rankings, in three areas: 1) how New Zealand can do better under the existing rankings; (2) technical and policy problems of the existing rankings, and alternative approaches to the process of international comparison; and (3) the larger question of strategies for improving the global standing and effectiveness of tertiary education in New Zealand.