The creation of the comprehensive ranking of the BRICS member countries' universities will allow international students, including those from Africa, to make well-considered decisions about their further education and thus future careers, said Artem Vasiliev, Academic Head of Synergy University, in an interview with Sputnik Africa.
"Every year, a large number of African students travel to the BRICS countries to study. The creation of a common ranking will allow these students to make informed choices about where to work and study in countries where their diplomas will be recognized upon graduation," he said.
According to the scholar, the creation of the association of BRICS educational organizations will allow to establish research cooperation between universities of the member states, including African ones. Thus, the enhanced research activities will subsequently increase the position of African universities in international and Western rankings.
Vasiliev emphasized that the BRICS rating system will become "a fair alternative" to the Western rankings of the world's top universities. He further elaborated that students will have the opportunity to enter universities based on their own choice and not only on the organization's place in the Western ranking.
"Our goal is to make education in universities of the BRICS countries prestigious, interesting and promising," Vasiliev stressed.
He noted that the proposed BRICS ranking will include classical indicators that measure the effectiveness of scientific activity, the quality of education, the reputation of a university and the degree of its internationalization.
The head of the Russian university recalled that Quacquarelli Symond, one of the world's leading companies specializing in the analysis of higher education institutions, announced the termination of cooperation with Russian and Belarusian universities after February 2022.
He explained that this move put the countries' universities in an "unequal position" in comparison with educational institutions in other states across the globe.
"Knowledge cannot be limited. That is why the initiative to create a ranking of BRICS universities was born. We are confident that together we will be able to create an honest ranking of the countries of the alliance," he said.
He stressed that there should be different systems for evaluating universities in the world, including those that take into account the peculiarities of the educational systems of certain countries and regions.
Vasiliev also recalled that in the declaration on the outcomes of the 10th Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Education, held in July, the senior officials reiterated their commitment to the creation of alternative systems to the existing rankings for universities. They underscored that the global rankings tend to be biased towards assessing the priorities and context of universities in the Global North and largely ignore values that reflect cooperation, sharing and solidarity in the field of higher education.