UK Snubs African Universities in Its Rankings

Britain will offer work visas to graduates from the world’s best universities in an expansion of its post-Brexit immigration system that is designed to attract the “best and brightest” workers. But no African universities are included in the list of eligible institutions. Under the scheme announced on Monday, graduates with a bachelor’s or master’s degree from the top 50 universities abroad can apply for a two-year work visa and will be allowed to bring family members with them. Those who receive doctorates can apply for a three-year visa. The most recent list of eligible universities from 2021, published online by the UK government, comprises more than two dozen US universities, as well as institutions in Canada, Japan, Germany, China, Singapore, France and Sweden. No African university is on the latest eligibility list, nor on lists for previous years. The decision to exclude graduates from African universities has been criticized. “To exclude an entire continent brimming over with the enormous creative and intellectual energies of its youth on the basis of its absence from arbitrary, culturally biased, abuse-prone university rankings is shortsighted…Several unranked African universities have produced, and continue to produce, some of the brightest minds in the world.” said Professor Farooq Kperogi of the Kennesaw State University, Georgia.

SOURCE: CNN