The facts
Egypt may have the most places among African universities in the global QS Top Universities of 2025 rankings, but it is South Africa that once again has the best universities in Africa. The University of Cape Town was the highest ranked African institution, but ranked only 171st in the world. It is one of four South African schools in the top five. The top-ranked school in Egypt was Cairo University, which ranked fifth in Africa but 350th globally. In total, only 40 African universities made the list out of some 1,500 institutions worldwide.
Knowing more
The low ranking of African universities in charts such as QS’s is usually due to low scores on crucial factors, particularly academic reputation, faculty-to-student ratio, and citations per faculty. For example, Cairo University is Egypt’s top-ranked university, but its 350th place in the global rankings may be due to achieving a score of 3 out of 100 on faculty citations.
But the top-ranked African universities tend to score well above average on their participation in international research networks and the employment outcomes of graduates. For example, Makerere University in Uganda, Kenya’s University of Nairobi and Nigeria’s University of Lagos – which are outside Africa’s top 10 – are rated poorly on academic reputation and faculty citation, but highly on employment outcomes.
