Durban - The University of Cape Town (UCT) retained its title as the top university in Africa, with the University of Stellenbosch following in second place, and the University of Witwatersrand in third place.
The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), which previously ranked sixth in Africa, has fallen to 10th place. This was revealed in the 2018 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings report released on Thursday.
The rankings, which are released annually, show which universities have the best global reputation and which ones are not faring too well.
More than 70000 academics and 30000 employers contribute to the report. The results included nine South African universities on its African list of 18 institutions.
Worldwide, UKZN, which ranked in the 651-700 last year, dropped to the 701-750 category this year.
UCT remained within the top 200 universities in the world at number 191.
The ranking is based on six categories, such as academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty, student to faculty ratio, international faculty and international students.
Academic reputation, which is measured using a global survey, in which academics were asked to identify the institutions where they believed the best work was currently taking place within their field of expertise, remained the biggest contributor to scores making up 40% of the scores.
Three other African universities were included in the top 400 category.
They are Stellenbosch University at spot 361, the University of the Witwatersrand at 364 and The American University in Cairo at 395.
The other South African universities on the list included the University of Pretoria (501-550); Rhodes University; North West University and University of Western Cape (801-1000).
In a separate ranking known as the Centre for Science and Technology Studies Leiden Ranking released earlier this year,
the UKZN was placed third in Africa and was ranked 436th in the world.
This ranking included 902 universities from 54 countries worldwide and offered key insights into the scientific performance of major universities worldwide.
A sophisticated set of bibliometric indicators provides statistics on the scientific impact of universities and on universities involvement in scientific collaboration.