The Ranking Game

Lo, William Yat Wai; Allen, Ryan M.

Abstract

This chapter analyses the prevalence of global university rankings within the context of intensified global competition in higher education and the associated call for developing world-class universities in Asia. It argues that higher education internationalization within the Asian context has been considered a way to catch up and compete with the Western world. Such a desire to catch up with the West has been justified within the region-wide call for building world-class universities in some Asian societies, such as Mainland China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Malaysia where governments employ rankings as a policy instrument to measure and monitor the performance of their universities and to steer their higher education sectors towards a global standard. Based on this analysis, the chapter illustrates an antinomy of the power of global university rankings, which suggests that rankings provide universities with a clear pathway to academic and research excellence but narrow scholarly diversity.

Citation

Lo, W. Y. W., & Allen, R. M. (2023). The Ranking Game. In D. Kapur, D. M. Malone, & L. Kong (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific Region (210-227). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192845986.013.10

• Online Publication Date: Feb 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Jan 26, 2023
• Deposit Date: Sep 21, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 27, 2025
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Pages: 210-227
• Book Title: The Oxford Handbook of Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific Region
• Chapter Number: 10
• ISBN: 9780192845986
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192845986.013.10
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1745541