-Prof Jonathan Moyo
The number of African universities in the top bands of the world university rankings has dropped from 75 in 2024 to 73 in the 21st edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2025 in which Zimbabwe has only one out of its 20 universities, the University of Zimbabwe which has hit rock bottom by dropping from the 1,201 – 1,500 joint band in 2024 to poorly and embarrassingly rank in the lowly 1501+ band.
Even universities south of the Limpopo River, which have been doing well in recent years, did not stand their ground in the 2025 rankings with none of them improving from their 2024 positions; while seven of them dropped in their rankings.
Save for the notable exception of four universities in Egypt and one in Morocco, universities elsewhere across Africa did not fare any better, as they too either maintained or dropped from their 2024 rankings.
Internationally, Oxford University continued to rule the roost at the top, for the ninth year running, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came second, toppling Stanford University, which dropped to number six.
Two Chinese universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University made their top 10 bid conspicuous; with a good run at numbers 12 and 13 respectively.
Below are the world’s top 20 universities:
- University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States)
- Harvard University (United States)
- Princeton University (United States)
- University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
- Stanford University (United States)
- California Institute of Technology (United States)
- University of California, Berkeley (United States)
- Imperial College London (United Kingdom)
- Yale University (United State)
- ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
- Tsinghua University (China)
- Peking University (China)
- The University of Chicago (United States)
- University of Pennsylvania (United States)
- Johns Hopkins University (United States)
- National University of Singapore (Singapore)
- Columbia University (United States)
- University of California, Los Angeles (United States)
- Cornell University (United States)
Some 2,860 universities from 133 countries and territories submitted data for the 2025 world rankings reckoning; but only 2,092 of these qualified to be ranked, while 768 did not qualify and were thus given a ’reporter’ status; which is equivalent to a certificate of participation.
Out of the 2,092 universities that were ranked, 135 are African from 19 countries in the continent, broken down as follows: Egypt (35), Algeria (26), Nigeria (21), South Africa (14), Morocco (12), Tunisia (8), Ghana (4), Botswana (2), Kenya (2), Tanzania (2), with one each from the DRC, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Below are Africa’s top 20 universities within the continent (showing their world ranking):
- (180) University of Cape Town (South Africa)
- (301–350) Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
- (301–350) University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
- (401–500) Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (Morocco)
- (401–500) University of Johannesburg (South Africa)
- (501–600) Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology [E-JUST] (Egypt)
- (501–600) University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)
- (601–800) American University in Cairo (Egypt)
- (601–800) Future University in Egypt (Egypt)
- (601–800) Kafrelsheikh University (Egypt)
- (601–800) Mansoura University (Egypt)
- (601–800) University of Pretoria (South Africa)
- (601–800) University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
- (801–1000) Al-Azhar University (Egypt)
- (801–1000) Cairo University (Egypt)
- (801–1000) Covenant University (Nigeria)
- (801–1000) North-West University (South Africa)
- (801–1000) University of Cape Coast (Ghana)
- (801–1001) University of Tunis El Manar (Tunisia)
- (1001–1200) Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria)
While the University of Cape Town remains Africa’s top ranked university, and the only one among the world’s top 200 universities, it has dropped to number 180 in the 2025 rankings, from number 167 in 2024.
Out of the world’s top 500 universities, Africa has only five — four of them from South Africa, namely; University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand Stellenbosch University, and the University of Johannesburg; while the fifth is from Morocco, the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University; which is a new entrant in the rankings, and the best ranked university in North Africa.
Notably, as mentioned above, none of the usually high performing South African universities improved from their previous rankings.
However, it is also notable that South Africa increased its total number of ranked universities with the entrance of Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University in band 1,201 – 1,500 and the University of Fort Hare in the 1,501+ band.
Other notable new African entrants in the world university rankings from our part of the continent are the DRC’s University of Kinshasa, the University of Rwanda and Kenyatta University in Kenya, all of which ranked — better than the University of Zimbabwe — in the 1,500+ band.
Out of the 768 universities that did not qualify for ranking in the basket of the 2,860 universities from 133 countries and territories that submitted data for the 2025 world rankings — which were given a ’reporter’ status or certificate of participation — 151 are from 17 African countries: Algeria (56), Angola (20), Egypt (12), Kenya (12), Libya (8), Ghana (4), Morocco (4), Somalia (3), Tunisia (2), and one each from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritius, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.
This means Africa had 151 unranked universities from 17 countries, and 135 ranked universities from 19 countries; bringing the total number of African universities that submitted data for the 2025 world rankings to 286.
For ease of reference, below is comprehensive and detailed breakdown of the African participation in the 21st edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2025 in which Zimbabwe has just one out of its 20 universities, the University of Zimbabwe which has hit rock bottom by dropping from the 1,201 – 1,500 joint band in 2024 to poorly and embarrassingly rank in the lowly 1501+ band. The breakdown has been computed from the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2025, whose link is given at the foot of this write up.
Tellingly, and worryingly, universities in Zimbabwe that don’t feature at all in the overall world university rankings include all of them minus the University of Zimbabwe:
Africa University
African Women University
Arrupe Jesuit University
Bindura University of Science Education
Catholic University of Technology
Chinhoyi University of Technology
Great Zimbabwe University
Gwanda State University
Harare Institute of Technology
Lupane State University
Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences
Marondera University of Agricultural Science & Technology
Midlands State University
National University of Science and Technology (NUST)
Reformed Church University
Solusi University
Zimbabwe Ezekiel University
Zimbabwe National Defence University
Zimbabwe Open University.
This is awful. Something is wrong here, and it needs to be corrected as a matter of urgency, in the national interest.
What is going on?
Too many good for nothing universities with nothing to write home about to justify their existence as institutions of higher learning and advanced research. These universities must shape up or ship out.
Universities that do not leave up to the minimum standard of performance have no right to exist, they should be deregistered.
Situations or circumstances that are arresting advanced research at Zimbabwe’s institutions of higher education — for them to stand up and be counted among the world’s best — do not require rocket science to understand.
Consider the following:
Firstly, there’s no public funding of research. Zimbabwe will not industrialise nor modernise without a knowledge based and knowledge driven economy. Put differently, Zimbabwe will not become an upper middle income country without a knowledge based and knowledge driven economy.
Still in other words, vision 2030 is impossible to achieve without such an economy. Conversely, you cannot have a knowledge economy when there’s no public funding of knowledge generation at the country’s institutions of higher education through advanced research.
Secondly, Zimbabwe’s universities are principally and notoriously text-book based, higher education teaching institutions; they are yet to transform into higher education research institutions whose strategic purpose is not to teach from textbooks but to teach from the generation of knowledge — intellectual property — through advanced research.
This transformation will not happen unless and until there’s requisite public funding of advanced research at the country’s universities commensurate with societal needs.
Thirdly, public funding of advanced research at universities should not only come from the state but it should also from the private sector.
Zimbabwe’s private is not known for the pursuit of excellence or for funding the creation of patented intellectual property at institutions of higher education for the betterment of lives and livelihoods as part of their business models.
Far from it. In Zimbabwe business is synonymous with making predatory profits in the crudest of ways. What have the likes of Innscor, Delta, Econet and Old Mutual done for the pursuit of excellence or knowledge generation in Zimbabwe?
What is their relationship with institutions of higher education in the country?
As if this is not bad enough, in Zimbabwe you get people who style themselves as leading business tycoons whose sense of philanthropy is to donate vehicles or give money to individuals who should be making their own money to buy themselves cars or whatever, and who do not do anything for society or any community.
This kind of philanthropy is nothing but nauseating corruption.
Otherwise, take a look the philanthropy that is practiced in enlightened societies, there’s no better philanthropy than supporting research and development at institutions of higher education.
Fourthly, Zimbabwe’s institutions of higher education themselves, are their own worst enemies.
Witness how many of them are busy competing with primary schools making mazhanje juice or competing with polytechnics doing basic reverse engineering projects on things like tram concepts — claiming to be building innovation hubs — when they’re supposed to be doing advanced research to generate ground breaking intellectual property to produce fresh engineering solutions to community and societal problems.
It is plain wrong and even intellectually criminal to celebrate such embarrassing mediocrity as innovation.
Fifthly, and last but not least, public discourse in Zimbabwe is never about ideas; it’s always about personalities, about good guys and bad guys — praising some and cancelling out others — and never about good ideas and bad ideas.
This explains why there’s no fact-checking culture in Zimbabwe, and why public debate is not evidence based. It’s invariably about mumbo jumbo politics.
Truth be told, it is very difficult and even impossible for institutions of higher education to thrive in a society whose public discourse is about good guys versus bad guys; and not about good ideas versus bad ideas. This rot is totally unacceptable!
-World University Rankings 2025
