Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

EDUCATION

ETH Zurich has ‘best reputation’ in continental Europe

Switzerland’s federal technology institute ETH Zurich has the best reputation in continental Europe, according to the World Reputation Rankings 2017 carried out by the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE).

Published: 15 June 2017 12:03 CEST
ETH Zurich has 'best reputation' in continental Europe
Photo: ETH Zurich
Based on an opinion survey of leading academics, the ranking asked scholars to name 15 universities that they believe are the best for research and teaching, based on their own experience.
 
The results were collated in a reputational ranking of the world’s top 100 most powerful global university brands as judged by those best-placed to know, according to THE. 
 
ETH Zurich placed 22nd, behind mostly US and UK universities but ahead of any other institution in continental Europe.
 
American universities Harvard, MIT and Standford made up the top three ahead of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, which placed joint fourth.
 
Tokyo University in Japan was the highest non-US/UK institution, placing 11th.
 
Behind ETH Zurich, Moscow University ranked 30th and Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) 38th.
 
Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) also made it into the top 50, at 45th.
 
In its analysis THE said some Asian universities were now considered more prestigious among top academics than many distinguished Western institutions. 
 
Tsinghua University in China jumped into the top 15 for the first time and Peking University made its top 20 debut, both overtaking Cornell University in the US and the UK’s Imperial College London.
 
By contrast, top universities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands have lost ground, it said.
 
But there is a disparity between reputation and actual performance, it added, since Asian universities do not appear as highly in the THE World University Rankings, which measure research performance.
 
ETH Zurich is regularly named among the world’s best universities. 
 
Last September it was crowned the best university in continental Europe and eighth in the world by the QS World University Rankings.
 
In February ETH Zurich and EPFL were named the world’s most ‘international’ universities in another THE ranking.
 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

SHOW COMMENTS