Top universities - Europe lags behind UK?

[Osem]

Why? We're always being told that much of our education system is anything but good and that Europe does these things so much better so why is it that there are so few European universities in the elite list?

The UK has 34 in the top 200 list whilst:

Germany has 20 universities in the top 200 and the Netherlands has 12 and there are five from France, while Spain and Italy each have three.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34390466

Given the relative sizes of the countries quoted, the Netherlands is doing really rather well overall. Wonder what their secret is.

It's worth pointing out also, we have more universities overall than Germany (109 against 70-ish according to the great god Wiki), and a lower population, so rather more university places per head and, presumably, more chances for people to get into them.

Having said that, you have to wonder what sort of courses are on offer at some of them...

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chris

Given the relative sizes of the countries quoted, the Netherlands is doing really rather well overall. Wonder what their secret is.

It's worth pointing out also, we have more universities overall than Germany (109 against 70-ish according to the great god Wiki), and a lower population, so rather more university places per head and, presumably, more chances for people to get into them.

Having said that, you have to wonder what sort of courses are on offer at some of them...

Do the Germans have more technically orientated institutions which aren't classed as universities I wonder?

[Ignitionnet]

Give it time for the government to continue cutting funding and complaining about how inefficient our universities and research are, despite their results being pretty much the best in the world given how relatively starved of funding they are and we'll soon change this.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/p...search-funding

A government minister embracing deeper cuts to his department. There's looking after your portfolio.

What has been highlighted, though, is a good example of why the government shouldn't have meddled with education. If our universities are so good clearly the schools and colleges feeding those universities weren't doing so badly prior to Gove getting obsessed over 'rigour' and perhaps didn't need the massive wholesale reforms that have made my wife want to leave the profession having had over a decade of excellent results and outcomes.

[tweetiepooh]

Not Gove but the previous lot push more people into university. All the poly's and colleges becoming universities. These then growing to accommodate the new numbers more cost, higher fees.

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Not Gove but the previous lot push more people into university. All the poly's and colleges becoming universities. These then growing to accommodate the new numbers more cost, higher fees.

What I think of Gove and New Labour's efforts with education is unprintable..

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

What I think of Gove and New Labour's efforts with education is unprintable..

You could go ahead and redact the worst bits. Maybe something like this: