Africa has marked a significant milestone in the evolution of higher education evaluation with the graduation of 1,403 certified ranking professionals and the unveiling of the continent’s first homegrown African University Ranking System (AURS).

The ceremony, organised by the Virtual Institute for Capacity Building in Higher Education (VICBHE), which began in 2001 as the Virtual Institute for Higher Education Pedagogy (VIHEP) under the National Universities Commission (NUC), has continued to drive excellence in higher education under the leadership of Prof Peter Okebukola.

The institute’s flagship programme, ‘Mastering university rankings for global visibility’, has trained professionals from 11 countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Cameroon, Senegal, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Sierra Leone.

The graduation ceremony featured the formal inauguration of the Association of Ranking Professionals (ARP), a new body that will serve as the professional backbone for ranking practitioners across Africa.

The ARP was established to set standards, build capacity, and advance the cause of evidence-based university quality advancement on the continent.

In his remarks, Okebukola charged the newly certified ranking professionals to return to their institutions as champions of quality data, global competitiveness, and evidence-based decision-making.

The AURS was launched to address concerns that dominant global ranking frameworks, largely created for highly resourced institutions in the global north, fail to adequately reflect African realities or recognise universities’ societal impact.

The new ranking system aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and leverages insights from the Nigerian Universities Ranking Advisory Committee (NURAC).

Keynote Speaker, Prof. Ellen Hazelkorn, a globally renowned scholar of university rankings, stressed the importance of African universities taking ownership of their ranking systems.

Eleven awards were presented to exceptional participants across various professional categories, recognising excellence in areas such as overall performance, leadership, and contributions to the field of university rankings.

The ARP was officially inaugurated, with Prof Umar Bashir, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Aliko Dangote University of Science and Technology, Kano, as inaugural President.

The AURS is expected to complement global rankings by offering a clearer mirror of African performance and a strategic tool for institutional development across the continent.