The main entrance to Kenyatta University along Thika Superhighway.
Kenyatta University has emerged the top ranked university in Kenya in the latest World Universities Rankings 2025 released on Wednesday October 9 2024.
The list published by the Times Higher Education does not have any Kenyan university in the top 10 in Africa, which is dominated by eight institutions from South Africa, one from Nigeria and one from Ghana
Public universities in Kenya have been facing a myriad of challenges, especially funding and staffing. The model that was introduced last year has faced resistance while lecturers only called off a nationwide strike over pay two weeks ago.
The other top ranked universities from Kenya are: Amref International University, Egerton University, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kabarak University, Kibabii University, Kisii University, Maasai Mara University, Machakos University, Catholic University of East Africa, University of Eldoret, University of Kabianga and Zetech University.
Higher education institutions are ranked based on performance indicators that are grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment), research environment (volume, income and reputation), research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and Industry (income and patents).
Teaching reputation, research environment and research quality carry the most points at 29.5, 29 and 30 per cent, respectively.
Under teaching, the assessors look at the teaching reputation, the staff-to-student ratio, doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio, doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio and the institutional income. KU had a score of 14.2 per cent while UoN had 12.5 per cent. The scores for other Kenyan universities have not been given.
The key pointers under research environment are research reputation, research income and research productivity. The UoN outscores KU in this area with scores of 9.8 per cent (research environment) and 37.3 per cent (research quality). KU had 8.9 and 27.2 per cent in the fields.
“When you underfund university teaching, the result is often worse staff-to-student ratios, problems with marking and evaluation and inadequate contact hours or class sizes. If you do this while other countries take the opposite route, your relative position is bound to deteriorate,” said Nick Hillman, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.
Internationally, the University of Oxford has retained the number one spot in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for a ninth year in a row.
It is followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US), Harvard University (US), Princeton University (US) and the University of Cambridge (UK).
The others in the top ten list are Stanford University (UK), California Institute of Technology (US), University of California, Berkeley (US), Imperial College London (UK) and Yale University (US).
“Oxford’s reign is now the longest in the history of the league table, beating Harvard’s eight-year stint which ended in 2011. The institution’s performance has been bolstered by significant improvements in its income from industry and the number of patents that cite its research, as well as its teaching scores,” reads a press statement by the ranking body.
The top universities in Africa are University of Cape Town (SA), Stellenbosch University (SA), University of the Witwatersrand (SA), University of Johannesburg (SA), University of KwaZulu-Natal (SA), University of Pretoria (SA), University of the Western Cape (SA), Covenant University (Nigeria), North-West University (SA) and University of Cape Coast (Ghana).
