Karaganda State Technical University for the first time entered the most prestigious ranking of the best universities in the world – QS World University Rankings. In the final table of the TOP-1000 rating of world universities for 2018, KSTU immediately took a position in the cluster of 751+ among more than 4,000 universities from 85 countries.
Altogether 10 top universities of Kazakhstan (including 4 national ones) were included in the TOP-1000 authoritative rating.
Rating of the QS World University Rankings, which has been published for more than a decade, is a recognized instrument in the world for assessing the quality of education. Compilers of the rating used six main criteria: reputation in the academic environment, citation of scientific publications of university representatives, the ratio of the number of teachers and students, the attitude of employers to the graduates, and the relative number of foreign teachers and students.
Since 2015, the methodology for compiling the institutional and sectoral QS ratings has changed. “For example, from this year QS rating began to take into account the results of surveys of experts for 5 years, and not for 3 years, as it was in the past years. There have been fundamental changes in the accounting of publication activity: publications with a large number of co-authors or the number of affiliated universities have been excluded from the accounting. Certain categories of publications are no longer taken into account. There is a balanced citation of branches of science”- says vice-rector for strategic development Zhetesova G.S.
Despite all the innovations, KSTU improved its performance due to the planned achievement of the university’s integrated development program. “This year KSTU has significantly improved evaluation of the reputation of academic experts “- noted Toleuova A., the
Head of Public Relations and Rating Center. Also experts noted an improvement in academic reputation and the quality of scientific publications in industry ratings (the industry rating of QS, in contrast to the institutional rating, largely depends on the reputation indicators – the academic reputation and reputation of employers. In addition, according to Scopus data only the quality of the university publications is taken into account).
It is worth noting that Kazakhstani higher educational institutions show the best results in indicator of the ratio of the number of students per teacher. For example, KSTU entered the top 250 in the world in this indicator. According to other criteria, KSTU demonstrates very high rates. As the regional director of QS Zoya Zaitseva explains, work on the internationalization of faculty and the increase in the index of citing scientific articles should be a cornerstone for the next few years.
| Reputation of the scientific community 501+ |
| Reputation of employers 501+ |
| Citation on 1 faculty 601+ |
| Ratio of faculty to students 264 |
| Foreign faculty 601+ |
| Foreign students 601+ |
“I am very pleased that higher educational institutions of Kazakhstan have joined the international processes to improve the competitiveness of higher education. Two new universities in the ranking of universities in the world – is a good result for two years,”- emphasized Larisa Osipova, noting that there is still a lot of work ahead.
KSTU has a rapid progress in international ratings. For the last year KSTU improved its positions in the World QS rating by 74%. This is the result of global competitiveness that laid in the transition to an innovative entrepreneurial university. Our graduates are in demand both in Kazakhstani and foreign science, and in high-tech companies.