Akinbayo Wahab | 20:29 | 26.09.2018

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings rates Covenant University among the first 700 in the world.

Covenant University (Nairaland)
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings has rated Covenant University as one of the top 700 universities in Nigeria.
Covenant University on Wednesday, September 26, 2018, announced the institution's new world ranking on its Twitter handle saying the faith-based school has joined global ranked universities.

The tweet reads: Whoa! Good news. Covenant joins global ranked universities.

Ranked 636 in the world, the faith-based university is rated based on Teachings, Research, Citations, Industry Income and International Outlook.

5 misconceptions about the students of this school
» more Covenant University graduates during convocation ceremony. (Naijaloaded)
Profiling the institution on its website, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings describes the school as one of the leading universities in Africa found on Christian Mission Ethos.

The ranking platform also says Covenant University has had a rapid rise in reputation in the decade and a half it has been operating. The Nigerian Universities Commission named it the best private university in Nigeria in its 2018 rankings and the 6th best university overall.

Earlier in February 2018, Webometrics, another university ranking website rated Covenant University as the second best university in Nigeria.

The top 1000 university ranking is a rank featuring the top 5% universities in the world out of a total of 29,000 institutions globally. It should be noted that over 97% of American institutions don't make the top 1000 rankings.

Covenant University a sixteen year old university which joined the University of Ibadan to emerge one of the few universities in Africa to ever feature in the rankings and the second university from Nigeria to ever appear in the rankings.

Covenant University hereby becomes the first
private university in Nigeria, Second private university in Africa to feature in the top 1000 rankings. Covenant University(2002) and University of Johannesburg(2005) also become the youngest universities from Africa to feature in the ranking.

On the other hand the University of Ibadan also improved from the previous year ranking of 800 - 1000th to 600 - 800th.

Finally, the University Of Nigeria, Nsukka was the third and last university from the entire Nigeria. However it did not make the top 1000 but was ranked 1000+

In West Africa Nigeria leads with three universities featured with Ghana coming second and last with only one university featured at 800 - 1000th; The University of Ghana.

Blog Source: https://www.pulse.ng/communities/student/covenant-university-is-among-top-700-universities-in-the-world-id8905970.html

Ranking Source For Africa
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/where-to-study/study-in-africa





Methodology Of Times Higher World University Ranking

Exclusions
Universities can be excluded from the World University Rankings if they do not teach undergraduates, or if their research output amounted to fewer than 1,000 relevant publications between 2013 and 2017 (with a minimum of 150 a year). Universities can also be excluded if 80 per cent or more of their research output is exclusively in one of our 11 subject areas.


Data collection
Institutions provide and sign off their institutional data for use in the rankings. On the rare occasions when a particular data point is not provided, we enter a conservative estimate for the affected metric. By doing this, we avoid penalising an institution too harshly with a “zero” value for data that it overlooks or does not provide, but we do not reward it for withholding them.

Getting to the final result
Moving from a series of specific data points to indicators, and finally to a total score for an institution, requires us to match values that represent fundamentally different data. To do this, we use a standardisation approach for each indicator, and then combine the indicators in the proportions indicated to the right.

The standardisation approach we use is based on the distribution of data within a particular indicator, where we calculate a cumulative probability function, and evaluate where a particular institution’s indicator sits within that function. A cumulative probability score of X in essence tells us that a university with random values for that indicator would fall below that score X per cent of the time.

For all indicators except for the Academic Reputation Survey, we calculate the cumulative probability function using a version of Z-scoring. The distribution of the data in the Academic Reputation Survey requires us to add an exponential component.

World University Rankings 2019 Metrics



Teaching (the learning environment) – 30%

Reputation survey: 15%
Staff-to-student ratio: 4.5%
Doctorate-to-bachelor’s ration: 2.25%
Doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio: 6%
Institutional income: 2.25%

The most recent Academic Reputation Survey (run annually) that underpins this category was carried out between January and March 2018. It examined the perceived prestige of institutions in teaching. The responses were statistically representative of the global academy’s geographical and subject mix. The 2018 data are combined with the results of the 2017 survey, giving more than 20,000 responses.

As well as giving a sense of how committed an institution is to nurturing the next generation of academics, a high proportion of postgraduate research students also suggests the provision of teaching at the highest level that is thus attractive to graduates and effective at developing them. This indicator is normalised to take account of a university’s unique subject mix, reflecting that the volume of doctoral awards varies by discipline.

Institutional income is scaled against academic staff numbers and normalised for purchasing-power parity (PPP). It indicates an institution’s general status and gives a broad sense of the infrastructure and facilities available to students and staff.


Research (volume, income and reputation) – 30%

Reputation survey: 18%
Research income: 6%
Research productivity: 6%
The most prominent indicator in this category looks at a university’s reputation for research excellence among its peers, based on the responses to our annual Academic Reputation Survey (see above).

Research income is scaled against academic staff numbers and adjusted for purchasing-power parity (PPP). This is a controversial indicator because it can be influenced by national policy and economic circumstances. But income is crucial to the development of world-class research, and because much of it is subject to competition and judged by peer review, our experts suggested that it was a valid measure. This indicator is fully normalised to take account of each university’s distinct subject profile, reflecting the fact that research grants in science subjects are often bigger than those awarded for the highest-quality social science, arts and humanities research.

To measure productivity we count the number of publications published in the academic journals indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database per scholar, scaled for institutional size and normalised for subject. This gives a sense of the university’s ability to get papers published in quality peer-reviewed journals. Last year, we devised a method to give credit for papers that are published in subjects where a university declares no staff.

Citations (research influence) – 30%

Our research influence indicator looks at universities’ role in spreading new knowledge and ideas.

We examine research influence by capturing the average number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally. This year, our bibliometric data supplier Elsevier examined 67.9 million citations to 14.1 million journal articles, article reviews, conference proceedings, books and book chapters published over five years. The data include more than 25,000 academic journals indexed by Elsevier’s Scopus database and all indexed publications between 2013 and 2017. Citations to these publications made in the six years from 2013 to 2018 are also collected.

The citations help to show us how much each university is contributing to the sum of human knowledge: they tell us whose research has stood out, has been picked up and built on by other scholars and, most importantly, has been shared around the global scholarly community to expand the boundaries of our understanding, irrespective of discipline.

The data are normalised to reflect variations in citation volume between different subject areas. This means that institutions with high levels of research activity in subjects with traditionally high citation counts do not gain an unfair advantage.

We have blended equal measures of a country-adjusted and non-country-adjusted raw measure of citations scores.

In 2015-16, we excluded papers with more than 1,000 authors because they were having a disproportionate impact on the citation scores of a small number of universities. In 2016-17, we designed a method for reincorporating these papers. Working with Elsevier, we developed a fractional counting approach that ensures that all universities where academics are authors of these papers will receive at least 5 per cent of the value of the paper, and where those that provide the most contributors to the paper receive a proportionately larger contribution.

International outlook (staff, students, research) – 7.5%


Proportion of international students: 2.5%
Proportion of international staff: 2.5%
International collaboration: 2.5%
The ability of a university to attract undergraduates, postgraduates and faculty from all over the planet is key to its success on the world stage.

In the third international indicator, we calculate the proportion of a university’s total research journal publications that have at least one international co-author and reward higher volumes. This indicator is normalised to account for a university’s subject mix and uses the same five-year window as the “Citations: research influence” category.

Industry income (knowledge transfer) – 2.5%


A university’s ability to help industry with innovations, inventions and consultancy has become a core mission of the contemporary global academy. This category seeks to capture such knowledge-transfer activity by looking at how much research income an institution earns from industry (adjusted for PPP), scaled against the number of academic staff it employs.

The category suggests the extent to which businesses are willing to pay for research and a university’s ability to attract funding in the commercial marketplace – useful indicators of institutional quality.


Data Audit: The calculation of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019 has been independently audited by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), making these the only global university rankings to be subjected to full, independent scrutiny of this nature.


Source For Methodology:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/methodology-world-university-rankings-2019


TheVictorious Writerights

Other African Leaders - Data Point

1) University of Ibadan: 600 - 800th
2) University of Ghana: 800 - 1000th
3) University Of Capetown: 156th
4) University Of Johannesburg: 600 - 800th

Other Global Powers - Data Point


1) Coventry University, UK: 600 -800th
2) University Of Manitoba, Canada: 400 - 500th

3) Massachusetts Institute Of Technology: 4th
4) Stanford University: 3rd

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Oyedepo will buy another private jet to celebrate this one

Johnpaul01:
Oyedepo will buy another private jet to celebrate this one

I tell you they are very ecstatic at this moment. A perfect birthday gift for BDO. Many Many billions have been spent pushing the university to this point. But with a Times ranking, the university would become more financially independent as research grants and international collaborations would come in more frequently than it has been coming before. In fact, with this ranking they are now qualified to receive many independently sponsored scholars, including Tetfund Scholars.

By God's grace Landmark university would also join by 2025.

BTW University Of Nigeria, Nsukka - Data Point cc christejames

When you need the mods you hardly see them.

Johnpaul01:
Oyedepo will buy another private jet to celebrate this one

Say anything you want to say but know that Oyedepo works 20 hours plus daily and oversees hundreds of missionary church stations across Africa.

These churches have schools attached to them also and some have a small medical centres as well.

Lalastica where are you. Please push to front page

Congratulations to Covenant U.

Meanwhile...

Private universities are structured in ways that allow students go for internship right from freshman year, infact it's compulsory as their students are given assessment workbook along with a formal letter head paper to organizations willing to take them. This is completely disparate from what you see in federal and state owned schools, their students have to cross this hurdle while in their penultimate year. Although, some exposed of this group take the initiative and seek out places to practice what they've been taught in class but that can't be compared to their counterparts who were mandated to do this. And this changes the paradigm as most of this firms gets inundated by the "outstanding" performance of this undergrads that they want more of their kind. For instance, KPMG and PwC have close to 15% of their fresh recruits from Covenant university alone. Babcock, ABUAD, and universities in their league take up to 30% of these recruits. The figures are not hard to get, a survey of their staff on LinkedIn will do justice to that. Even the HR of KPMG is from Covenant and just last year or earlier this year KPMG paid a visit go their accounting department and commended them for the caliber of students they produce, mentioning Tumi, the HR as an example. The federal university I believe is on this rank is Unilag and that's because of the proximity to these firms to the citadel which also allows for great exchange of information and exposure. The trend in the '70s to '90s were some selected federal schools because those at the helm of affairs were products of these schools but in years to come there's going to be a paradigm shift as most of these private universities products will be heading most companies and the issue of nepotism will always remain

A chat I had with the best graduating student from a popular federal university in the south south months ago. However, I cannot vouch for the figures.

My reply...

The future is private universities. Most millennials' parents attended public schools, but they (milennials) attend(ed) private schools - from primary to secondary, and to extent, increasingly, universities. In the future, these millennials' children will attend private universities. How many people are willing to send their kids to public schools these days (primary to secondary)?

However, this is not how things should be in a well-run nation. We're abdicating the responsibility of providing quality education to private individuals which is wrong as the vast majority of the populace will always attend public institutions. In a place like Singapore, the rich, middle class and lower class individuals attend public schools and public schools in saner places are where quality education is provided at affordable costs. Abdicating the responsibility of providing quality education to private individuals will get to the stage of the US where it is your economic background that will say if you're to obtain quality education and not your brain power. However, unlike the US where there are surfeit of scholarships and financial assistance, we don't have such here.

Will I send my kids to a private university if I remain in Nigeria? Affirmative! But is that how things ought to be? No. It should be that parents who desire to send their kids to private universities do so because they desire to, not because that is the only option of obtaining quality education for their wards.

The class war in the future will be epic to watch.

What about Ekiti State university?

Not surprised, it's mostly ignorant people that say "advanced secondary school" yen yen yen.. They have never dropped their phones for once to know a single thing about how theses schools work.

So happy these CU guys are also most employable graduates in Nigeria, all of you ranting online would still go and work for them and if it skips you, maybe your children. Keep typing "advanced secondary school and time would tell.

You know how the poor are, they would say just about anything.

This news has been on for like a month ago

SpoiltVirgin:
This news has been on for like a month ago

Yea traditionally a letter would be sent notifying a university that it had been included in the top 5% ranking. The CU VC got the letter on Aug 15, 2018 but the ranking was unveiled yesterday.

Gerrard59 you know private universities are cultish in nature and they tend to look out for their own. I remember a case where a Covenant university graduate was arrested by SARS(he committed no crime) onetime and nobody could find him. The Alumni launched a search campaign, when they eventually found him with SARS the level of calls that came in that day was indeed powerful-he was swiftly discharged.

They have a vigorous Alumni that have gone to lay ground work for employment of people that graduated from their school and i think its partly responsible for the job shift.

Look at Dickson Nsofor, the CEO behind the multi billion naira Kora Network has almost all his staff from Covenant. Public schools don't do stuff like that....

When you hear about how Covenant University,an experiment in how long young humans can be mentally subjugated without fighting back and a factory producing subservient morons being top 1000 in the world.....lalasticlala,who says there is no hope for your life too?

mayprince:
When you hear about how Covenant University,an experiment in how long young humans can be mentally subjugated without fighting back and a factory producing subservient morons being top 1000 in the world.....who says there is no hope for your life too?

why so much hate?

HigherEd:

I tell you they are very ecstatic at this moment. A perfect birthday gift for BDO. Many Many billions have been spent pushing the university to this point. But with a Times ranking, the university would become more financially independent as research grants and international collaborations would come in more frequently than it has been coming before. In fact, with this ranking they are now qualified to receive many independently sponsored scholars, including Tetfund Scholars.

By God's grace Landmark university would also join by 2025.

BTW University Of Nigeria, Nsukka - Data Point cc christejames

It is fair though. Would give it all to Covenant, the administration and proprietor have been doing everything they could to make sure they meet their vision target.

As for UNN, with the current innovations and initiatives from this present administration with a notable mention on its online MBA and other postgraduate studies will go a long way in laundering the image of the university among world renowned institutions.

grandiose4ever:
Gerrard59 you know private universities are cultish in nature and they tend to look out for their own. I remember a case where a Covenant university graduate was arrested by SARS(he committed no crime) onetime and nobody could find him. The Alumni launched a search campaign, when they eventually found him with SARS the level of calls that came in that day was indeed powerful-he was swiftly discharged.

They have a vigorous Alumni that have gone to lay ground work for employment of people that graduated from their school and i think its partly responsible for the job shift.

Look at Dickson Nsofor, the CEO behind the multi billion naira Kora Network has almost all his staff from Covenant. Public schools don't do stuff like that....

My brother, you said it all.. CU alumni is very strong and close... One of the major reasons for the employability, which is great. I now see why oyedepo doesn't want the population to go past 8thousand. That way, almost everyone knows everyone... Just like havard and imperial college.

cool

They keep soaring higher

Ok na.....

Upon all the name unilag and popularity they have..... Na WA.

Lol..Of all schools in Nigeria

Bede2u:
What about Ekiti State university?