According to a recent ranking of top universities around the world, Kuwait barely makes the list coming in 701+ out of 800 (they just grouped the bottom 100 universities into one lump). Kuwait University was the only local university that made it into the top 800. On the other hand Saudi Arabia had 7 universities make the list including one that made it to #216, the highest amongst our neighbors. Oman, Qatar and the UAE all ranked higher than Kuwait as well.
Not good.
Check out the full rankings [Here]
Old KU photo above taken from [Here]
37 replies on “Kuwait barely makes top 800 universities list”
Guess I shouldn’t have applied to Kuniv, and should’ve applied for a scholarship 🙁
*Throws a billion dollars at the problem*
aaa you don’t know how right your comment is. I used to work at one of the unis in Kuwait which shall go unnamed.
Students went to this English Language university, but often graduated knowing as little English as when they came in – funny when all the courses were in English. Furthermore I witnessed first hand how the girls would come in and flirt with the professor to get higher grades, or the boys would try and throw money at the professor to keep them from failing. Barring all that, the professors were constantly afraid of travel bans if they failed students. Hence most of the grading was done on a curve so as to not fail the number of students who had actually failed.
Literally, buy an degree in Kuwait. Which is sad cus the few students who DO study or have talent cannot progress or achieve more than the total idiots.
“I witnessed first hand how the girls would come in and flirt with the professor to get higher grades, or the boys would try and throw money at the professor to keep them from failing. Barring all that, the professors were constantly afraid of travel bans if they failed students. Hence most of the grading was done on a curve so as to not fail the number of students who had actually failed. ”
Grading is done on a curve when the academic staff has very poor performance and qualification. The academic staff (teachers and professors) are incapable of delivering the educational material and hence fail in achieving the minimum acceptable number of students passing the course.
The curve is there to compensate for academic staff incompetence.
By the way, I was a student at Kuwait University and I was also mislead to believe that the curve is Professors charity on us. Only when I went to study at the 3rd and 4th Universities listed on that link Mark posted did I know how ill our University system is in Kuwait.
Blame the professors? Why? I am not sure if you have attended a public or private high school, but the attitude of many of the Kuwaiti youth towards education is one of apathy. These students are all being taught by the same teachers (private high schools), yet they are the ones under-achieving (on average) by a big margin compared to the non-Kuwaiti students. Can it really be blamed on the teachers? If they are to take a part of the blame – most of it should fall on the students since there is no reason that they should underperform compared to their peers – especially when they have the money and resources to attend private ‘tutor’ sessions, which many do take advantage of with some success. BTdubs I am Kuwaiti.
I attended public school, where I recall one of the expat teachers called us insect, animal, armpit hair and scum of the community. That same teacher who sucked up to one of my colleagues cuz his father was high ranking police officer. I remember other teachers also gave that colleague (whose now a friend and a neighbor) examination answers. No he did not threaten them with anything… they approached him.
Students will not respect a professor who does not respect them. Common human nature… If you want respect, show people respect.
I did not respect many of my Kuwait University teachers and professors. Today, I have even less respect to the few who I had respected back then. I still respect handful of professors who really gave an effort… but the general, they were really .. reallly bad.
By the way, I’m talking about Kuwait University teachers and professors… they are appointed by a decree and no one can fire them. So there is no “attitude” that you mention.
As for the private sector teachers… I’ve met with some of them. Most of whom I met are very bad and get filtered from their institutions abroad and end up here in Kuwait. They spend few years in Kuwait as they look for a job in Qatar or Dubai.
“These students are all being taught by the same teachers (private high schools), yet they are the ones under-achieving (on average) by a big margin compared to the non-Kuwaiti students.”
Look, in every nation in the world, expats will out perform the local residents. Simply because those people are under immense pressure in comparison to the ones settled at home. That is one point…. its also not the case.
Face the fact that our professors are 100% to blame for the poor performance of their students. Most of them are incapable of delivering the educational material. They are inexperienced and incapable of dealing with their students.
Just because three non Kuwaitis spent days and nights together studying one subject and ate the lecture notes from previous years that does not make Kuwaiti students under-performing. That means the teacher FAILED in his job and that students were attempting to self-educate for their examinations.
In the civilized world -which Kuwaiti professors look at in contempt- a Professor would spend a full week teaching ONE chapter only. He would NOT move to the next chapter UNLESS the whole class understood the theory. Then, an exam will NOT take place before a minimum of six hours tutorial. A tutorial that the PROFESSOR HIMSELF along with three teaching assistance would attend to make sure that students CAN solve problems. Then you get the exam where you implement what you learned.
Here in Kuwait, I attended lectures with PhD teachers from newbies to those with over 30 years experience… Their common feature? They give you their back… all you hear is the knock of the chalk on greenboard for three hours a week… they cover one chapter per hour, they examine you every two to three weeks, tutorial is not attended by them, they give you examinations that they themselves fail to solve (they copy their exam questions off the internet and some books)… and then they say we’re not worth the time and money being spent on us!
Back to your non-Kuwaiti professors in the private sector… Had they been good professors, they would have not left students in need to seek private tutors or extra push to pass their subjects.
“That means the teacher FAILED in his job and that students were attempting to self-educate for their examinations.”
— Umm, your entire post lost credibility when I read this. You must be joking if you expect professors to spoon-feed you information. You have to ‘self-educate.’ The professor is there as a guide – you do the rest of the work. This ‘blame it on the professor’ mentality is not one to have.
“So there is no “attitude” that you mention.”
— I said attitude of students towards education. Apathy as in they, the students, don’t care.
“Look, in every nation in the world, expats will out perform the local residents”
— Where is your statistic to back-up this claim? This is ridiculous. The expats have fewer resources and still outperform. They are not genetically ‘better,’ but they sure are more motivated, whether it be because of parental pressure or personal motivation. I would like to see more of that in Kuwait. Go to any other country and your whole “expat” argument fails – US, UK, China, Lebanon, Morocco, France etc. the locals are outstanding. Kuwait… Not so much.
“I would like to see more of that in Kuwait. Go to any other country and your whole “expat” argument fails – US, UK, China, Lebanon, Morocco, France etc. the locals are outstanding. Kuwait… Not so much.”
I guess you haven’t heard jokes about Indian and chinese students in the US?
Or African and Arab students in the UK?
Its exactly similar to what you hear about Shammi and Egyptians in Kuwait.
What if they were not guiding at all, not influencing the students or the attendance to the class is pointless? Isn’t our responsibility to influnce our people to build up the country for better future? Do you expect people to act as a robot programmed to analyze every certain information? We are human beings we cross miles just to learn, if I am going to cross all that miles for nothing then why would I attend? I cross all that expecting myself to learn, but its for nothing, it is just a waste if time
In my case, I graduated from the Department of English Language & Literature at the College of Arts at Kuwait University. Let me tell you this, the professors there are among the best (all graduated from US & UK universities). They were the most respectful, knowledgeable, & organized I’ve ever met. They encouraged us to be free thinkers and approach topics with a critical eye. The courses we studied there rival the ones in the US & UK, which we compared, thanks to Google. The postgraduate courses were even better, as we were pushed to produce the most original theses in the fields. All theses were examined by anonymous examiners to ensure objectivity. Currently, the focus is on opening more MA & PhD programs at KU, which helps any university to rank higher.
What I’m trying to say is, in all universities, you might find the highs & lows of academic departments, staff, & facilities. KU has some of the best & not so best departments, again, like any university.
“What I’m trying to say is, in all universities, you might find the highs & lows of academic departments, staff, & facilities. KU has some of the best & not so best departments, again, like any university.”
The same should applies when talking about students.
I hate how foreign douchbags thinks about kuwaiti people as a rich people that always has the money to afford a tutor lessons,guess what we are not rich. Our money intake is very limited. We become broke after only few sessions, and we always borrow money to study and to make it to the classes. We are poor people most of us, and btw the government is the one who has the oil not the people we are just slaves whith no human rights, because if we were with human rights we would have the right to get a job without asking for an assesment from a higher class working man in the government. Imagine, we can not even get our rights without what is called WASTA. Btw I am a student in kuniv, and believe me our teachers can not even teach. As a student I have to figure out a complicated puzzle of how I should understand what I should do during the course. For example imagine having a certain assignment, its impossible to solve because of why? Because you do not know what the teacher wants, you have to come over and over to an endless circle. In this case you are the only one who is doing the job not the teacher. Terrible teachers. If they were good they would know how to teach from the beginning.
I’m just surprised to know that our University even has a ranking!
Kuwait University is nice.
Yea and imagine people comparing them to graduates from top 100 universities from other countries… AND SAYING THAT ITS THE SAME OR HARDER!
It isnt even close to the level of education that scholarship kuwaitis get, yet in the end they get the same job treatment. Almost all the time.
well you know, there’s always someone that gets it worse. Lots of expats with GOOD college degrees get paid anywhere from 150-350 KD a month. Some of those degrees are western too.
That’s not true. Staff who works at college in kuwait get paid much higher than 350 KD a month. it is between 2,000KD-3,000 KD.
There seems to be a clear common thread among the top ones….I’ll leave it up to each individual to decide what that is.
Umm… The top 20 are WAY off if you look at US News and world ranking. There seems to be a bias in these towards commonwealth countries. For example – why have a 50 under 50 rank? So that an Asian university comes on top? It is also ridiculous when schools such as Princeton, Yale, Stanford and University of Pennsylvania are ranked lower than UCL or Imperial – or that MIT is ranked highest. This is definitely not the perception in the US.
At least a plus to this is they recognized the existence of KU…
Well, I’d argue that UCL is far better than some of the Universities you mentioned. But anyway, I think the ranking depends on what was assessed in first place. How can you compare a technical university with another that has very little technical courses?
You must be a troll to say it is “much better.” Even the British Rankings, Times Higher Education, has it ranked much lower than the ones I listed. It is still a world-class university, but even within the UK there is a sizeable discrepancy in the perception one gets between going to Oxbridge vs Imperial or UCL. In the US, going to HYP (Harvard Yale Princeton)is the equivalent of the UK’s Oxbridge, while the other Ivy leagues, along with MIT and Stanford, would be the equivalent of Imperial. I am pretty confident that when speaking to the layman, fewer have heard of UCL or Imperial than of Princeton or Yale or the Ivy League. Just saying. In the end, they are all amazing universities, and the opportunity to study in any of these top universities is a blessing.
You must be a troll to say it is “much better.”
I’m not a troll, its just your brain is too tiny to understand.
“Even the British Rankings, Times Higher Education, has it ranked much lower than the ones I listed.”
The Guardian University guide 2014 lists Cambridge 1st, Oxford second, LSE third, and St Andrews 4th. Imperial College came at 9.
When it comes to engineering and technology, is it fair to say Imperial college is behind Oxford, LSE and St Andrews?! Nonsense. So the comparison that you’re talking about is just too broad and make no sense to me as someone who is interested in what they really have to offer.
“I am pretty confident that when speaking to the layman, fewer have heard of UCL or Imperial than of Princeton or Yale”
1. because they are taught in the US
2. they are more influenced by the American system
3. American education is commercialized. In the UK you study if you’re interested in learning. In the US, they want you to study so they feed you into their industry.
btw, if there is someone who didn’t hear of Imperial college then he probably never heard of those…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_College_London#Notable_alumni.2C_faculty_and_staff
Lol at you getting all riled up. Very east to refute this post:
– You must be joking if you do not think British education is commercialized – have you not seen Mark’s post of Edukex??
– “btw, if there is someone who didn’t hear of Imperial college then he probably never heard of those…” Well my friend – if that is your metric, I would not want to shame you by posting the notable alumni of the universities I mentioned.
– Woah, no personal attacks buddy. I meant a troll as in an Internet troll. Leave my ‘small brain’ alone! :'( <– trolling
That’s odd! Webometrics ranks Kuwait University at 12 (out of 830) in the Arab World and 72 (out of 1218) in the Middle East, & ranks KU at 1871 in the world top universities.
Here is the Webometrics ranking of the Arab World universities:
https://www.webometrics.info/en/Arab_world
Here is the ranking of the Middle East universities:
https://www.webometrics.info/en/asia_pacifico/middle_east
Universities list have different criterias when they rank universities, ergo the different results. In the UK, universities have different ranking based on the authority behind the lists, e.g. the Times, the Independent, etc.
If you noticed, all the western universities that opened in Qatar & UAE didn’t rank higher than Kuwait University in the Webometrics ranking. KU’s main competition is the Saudi universities.
Not denying some of the problems KU faces, but clarifying the nature of the lists.
I agree. This list is very odd. Kuwait University’s med school is ranked among the top in the Arab world and Kuwait University’s scientific research publishing outnumbers the rest of the GCC apart from Saudi Arabia.
Yes problems do exist in KU – like in any other university. The admission aptitude tests are hard and it’s competitive. If the university is so bad, it would be easy for any Kuwaiti to get in. AUK has much lower standards. KU’s aptitude tests are on par with mini SATs.
Saudi universities are the best in the region 🙂
True! They are the best.
I would be weary to say that, given that female Saudi lawyers do not have the right to practice. What is the point of a degree you cannot use? Otherwise, I guess the other departments might be better.
it can be used now.
I’m glad AUB is somehow in the top ranks 250, its surprising LAU is not there and only Saint Joseph the only Lebanese uni other than AUB. I doubt this list is cery authentic especially when Israel has 3 different universities that i never heard of their academic competence in the top 200 !!
+1
I’m an LAU student and I believe that LAU is totally qualified to be on that list.
The main problem is recognition. The faculty of Kuwait University for example is a ‘world class’ one. I study here and my Calculus Professor has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and my Physics Professor is from MIT.
Totally agree with you!
Awesome my university ranks #62!! <3
Kuwait University’s med school is nice. This list is biased.
University of Qatar and Oman are much worse than KU.
KU is better than most public universities in the region.
kuwait University is a money drain. billions of dollars have been fed into this university. Teaching staff get best salaries, best hours and lifestyles, equipped with best labs and technologies yet it ranks the worse , they offer very little PhDs in very few fields and regardless of number of publications they produce, most of it if not all are low quality with little contribution to sceince. I’m willing to shave my eye brows if you can name only 3 breakthrough discoveries made at this university, only 3 !! Okey name 2 only ! What does that tell us. Poor very poor quality of teaching staff, no creativity, no passion for sceince. By the way it requires only average IQ to get PhD degree so don’t be blown away by your teaching staff. I think some of the problem is related to the fact that most of the brightest students go to careers in medicine leaving behind average students who pursue PhD degrees and later on become your teaching staff !!
I ask that you respect our country