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For the third time in a row, no Nigerian university has made it into the top 1000 in the 2026 universities ranking by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University, a British higher education analytics firm.
The latest edition, released on 19 June, which assessed 1,501 institutions across 106 countries, highlighted the underwhelming global standing of Nigerian universities.
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Three Nigerian Universities
Only three of Nigeria’s 297 universities made the QS Rankings this year. They are University of Ibadan (UI), the University of Lagos (UNILAG), and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.
Both UI and UNILAG were placed in the 1001–1200 category, the same range as in the 2025 ranking. While ABU, which had no recorded position last year, appeared in the 1201–1400 category for 2026.
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African countries
Across Africa, Egypt led with 20 institutions, followed by South Africa with 11. Tunisia had four, while Ghana and Morocco had two each.
Kenya, Libya, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia each had one university on the list.
Only two African institutions were ranked among the global top 300, both from South Africa. The University of Cape Town placed 150th, while the University of the Witwatersrand ranked 291st.
Top 10 across the globe
At the top of the global table, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) retained its number one position for the 13th consecutive year. It was followed by Imperial College London and Stanford University.
Below is the full list of the top 10 universities in the 2026 QS World University Rankings:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US
Imperial College London, UK
Stanford University, US
University of Oxford, UK
Harvard University, US
University of Cambridge, UK
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
University College London (UCL), UK
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US
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Methodology
The QS rankings which are compiled annually are based on several metrics including academic and employer reputation, faculty, research citation counts, international student diversity, international research network, employment outcomes, and sustainability.
The organisation listed the methodology as Academic Reputation, 30 per cent; Citations per Faculty, 20 per cent; Employer Reputation, 15 per cent; Employment Outcomes, five per cent; Faculty Student Ratio, 10 per cent; International Faculty Ratio, five per cent; International Research Network, five per cent; International Student Ratio, five per cent; and Sustainability, five per cent .
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