Two international university rankings published in the last couple of months had me thinking about a perception index released by consultancy firm Ipsos in January, which revealed that South Africans are in a league of their own apropos of their perceptions of key scenarios in the country, with many tending towards the negative side.

It is thus little wonder that the national discourse is dominated by whinging about anything from the tardiness of municipal refuse collectors to the state of the healthcare system and what is really premature disillusionment with the new sheriff in town as Rama-phoria gives way to Rama-realism.

The two recent surveys I alluded to earlier are the 2018/19 iterations of the Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) survey and the QS World University Ranking (QSWUR), released in May and June respectively. According to both rankings, which feature what the compilers deem to be the best 1 000 universities in the world, several of Mzansi’s institutions of higher learning are up there with the best globally and are certainly the cream of the crop in Africa.

The CWUR list, determined by quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, research output, quality of publications, influence and citations, ranks the University of Cape Town (UCT) tops in Africa, followed by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), the University of Pretoria (UP), Stellenbosch University, Egypt’s Ain Shams University, Uganda’s Makerere University, the University of Johannesburg (UJ), the North-West University and Nigeria’s University of Ibadan.

UCT also tops the QSWUR list, compiled on the basis of academic reputation, with a weighting of 40%, employer reputation (10%), student-to-faculty ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), international faculty ratio (5%) and international student ratio (5%). In the QSWUR’s estimation, UCT is the 200th best university in the world, while Wits, which is in second position in Africa, is ranked 381st globally. Stellenbosch, the American University of Cairo (in Egypt), UJ, UP, Ain Shams and UKZN are ranked third to ninth in Africa. Kenya’s University of Nairobi, Morocco’s Al Akhawayn University, Egypt’s Al Azhar, Alexandria and Assiut universities, as well as our own North-West, Rhodes and Western Cape universities are joint tenth.

So, despite the copious aspersions cast on South Africa’s higher education by those who have been demanding that it be decolonised (whatever that means), the eggheads at our universities know what they are doing.

But I am disappointed that the University of Fort Hare is taking far too long to recover from the damage inflicted on it by the grand masters of apartheid, who did their damnedest to ensure that it became a shadow of its former self.

For those whose general knowledge is next to dololo (zilch), Botswana’s Seretse Khama, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Uganda’s Yusuf Lule, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe – all of whom would go on to lead their countries – all passed through the portals of that university, which is located in the Eastern Cape town of Alice. Other famous alumni include the late Kaiser Matanzima, a former leader of the Transkei Bantustan, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Archbishop Desmond Tutu . . . the list is long.

While Makerere made the CWUR list, coming in at Number 7, it too has lost its mojo. While Fort Hare was the key institution for black students from Southern Africa in its heyday, Makerere held sway in East Africa. It too is the alma mater of several heads of State, including Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Benjamin Mkapa, Uganda’s Milton Obote and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila.

One may add the University of Zimbabwe as another has-been. Many South African exiles, including former Cabinet Minister Penuell Maduna, erstwhile prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli and Mamodupi Mohlala, hold degrees from the Harare-based university. Mohlala, of course, is the former national consumer commissioner who was elbowed out of her job by Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies. Judging by the acrimony around her departure from government, there was no chemistry at all between her and Davies, and it’s a mystery that they worked together for as long as they did.