Ryan Jones once said “You can’t rest on your #1 ranking because the guy at #2 isn’t resting. He is still improving his site.” Just like in Times Higher Education World Universities Ranking. Every year they show the world university rankings. They show the improvement of each university. And I can say that the quote “Change is the only constant thing in the world” is true. We can see how the universities improve their global performance in teaching, research, knowledge transfer and International Outlook.

We may be curious on how this university makes it on top. We may ask what are the criteria for ranking the universities? Well, Times Higher Education use 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments. This performance indicators were grouped into five areas. Teaching (the learning environment), Research (volume, income, and reputation), citations (research influence), International outlook (staff, students, and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer). This five indicator were given an equivalent percentage and we can see this in the graph below:

The schools and countries that dominate the ranking in Times Higher Education, University Ranking this 2018 are in this table below:

It is shown in the table the list of the top 10 schools that dominate the rankings this 2018. You can see the rankings and of each school with its corresponding rank last 2011, the country where it is located, and the overall score based from the criteria or the performance indicators.

We can observe in this table that the countries that dominate the rankings are United Kingdom, United States, and Switzerland. The two highest places were from the United Kingom, however United State has the largest number of schools entered the top 10. Almost 63.64% of this 11 schools are from the United States.

I know some of you are curious about the ranking of Philippine Universities in Times Higher Education World University Ranking. University of the Philippines’ rank ranges from 601th to 800th. We should not be sad in this result, last year the University of the Philippines ranks above 800th. We should be proud that the University of the Philippines shows improvement because, from the 800th above UP is now part of the top 800.

One of the article from Time Higher Education features the Top 20 ways to improve your world university ranking. Amanda Goodall offers 20 inexpensive methods to help your institution climb the world university league tables. Here is the 20 ways proposed by Amanda Goodall:

1. To change a university, you need to change people’s incentives

2. To attract the best faculty, you need the best leaders

3. Control quality through hiring panels

4. Hire the best

5. Know the talent list and congratulate people

6. No pain, no gain

7. Too much change, no gain

8. Pay a top salary if you want the right department head

9. Incentivise raising research money

10. Cut the red tape and reduce the number of committees

11. As a leader, be accessible

12. Clarify the relationship between administrative and academic staff

13. Start to train scholars in management when they are young

14. Pick your board or council members because — and only because — they are good for the university, and then educate them

15. Tell Government ‘No!’

16. Give staff food for their tummies as well as thought

17. Hire a scholar as leader

18. Make sure the leader stays at least five years — and preferably more

19. Give the leader plenty of power (or don’t bother hiring one)

20. Let the leader pick his or her own top team

This a great way to become a better university. In addition focus on producing original research; teaching students to think critically, enjoy new knowledge, and become responsible citizens; make a positive contribution to your society and, when possible, to global society. Lastly, treat your staff and students with fairness and respect. Regardless of your rankings, you will be a fine university.

In this article we can ask what is the significance of improving our ranking? Well, it will have a good impact on our nation. We already know what credentialism mean though Randall Collins says people should be hired by employees not on the basis of education, but on the actual skills of the applicant, we cannot avoid the idea of credentialism. If a person graduated in a well -known school, he or she has the greatest chance to get the job. It’s exactly the point that we need to improve rankings Philippine universities in world university ranking for us to be internationally competent. Filipinos will not be deprive of opportunities because of having good credentials. This is a great impact on our nation. It will not just improve our reputation in terms of good quality of education. Filipinos will have greater opportunities abroad and don’t you know that Overseas Filipino Worker remittances represent 10 % of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product. It will be a great help booming the economy of our country.

Everyone of us has a role in improving Philippine University’s world ranking. We must apply those ways to improve our rankings. We must strive harder not only to be successful in life, but we should strive for our nation’s future. We should do our best to be on top. You should push yourself because, no one else is going to do this for us. We start moving now for our success and nation’s prosperity.