Top international universities

     Rob: Hello! I’m Rob and this is 6 Minute English. I’m joined today byAlice. Hi Alice.

    Alice: Hi Rob.

    Rob: Today, we’re talking about universities around the world, and a new list thatshows the top two hundred. I’m going to start by asking you a question Alice– which university has come number one in this list?

    Alice: There are so many famous universities around the World – let me guess – is itCambridge?

    Rob: Well, Cambridge University, in England, is certainly on the list but you’ll haveto wait until the end of the programme to see if you are right.

    Alice: OK.

    Rob: This new list is called the London Times Higher Education List. It ranksuniversities on a number of factors. These include its quality of teaching, theinfluence of its research and the income it gets for research.

    Alice: So, if these factors are higher, the university gets a higher ranking.

    Rob: That’s right. Of course, funding is very important.

    Alice: Funding…that’s money in other words. Is a university more successful if itgets more funding?

    Rob: Well, that is what Professor Steve Smith thinks. He is President of UniversitiesUK which represents all British universities. He says the US puts two-and-ahalftimes the amount of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) into its universitiesthan we do in the UK.

    Extract 1:

    The US puts two-and-a-half times the amount of GDP into its universities than we doand therefore, surprisingly, they get two-and-a-half times the number of universities inthe top two hundred. I think this is all about the investment that countries put in thefuture - all about the investment they put in their universities.

    Rob: Professor Steve Smith says it’s all about the investment the country puts intotheir universities that makes them successful.

    Alice: OK. So he says the US invests more money in universities than the UK so theyhave more of them on this list. Can I change my answer now?!

    Rob: No Alice. You may still be right. Fourteen British institutions are on the listincluding Oxford 1 and Cambridge.

    It’s interesting that the institutions which dominate the top of the list areEnglish speaking ones as BBC reporter Jonny Hogg explains….

    Extract 2:

    It's English speaking universities, and particularly those in America, that dominate thetop spots in this list. You have to go down to number fifteen to find the first nonAnglophone establishment, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and surprisingly,France's renowned 2 Ecole Polytechnique only comes in thirty ninth.

    Alice: Ah, so American universities dominate the top of the list, but what does hemean about the first non-Anglophone establishment being at number fifteen?

    Rob: Well, Anglophone means English speaking. So the first non-Anglophoneuniversity in the list was?

    Alice: The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. But come on Rob, who wasnumber one?

    Rob: Wait and see Alice! Let’s find out about some of the other countries in the list.

    Here’s Jonny Hogg again…Extract 3:

    Elsewhere, Asia has done well, with Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and China allhaving universities in the top forty. Only two African institutions, one, the university ofCapetown in South Africa, the other, the University of Alexandria in Egypt, make thetop two hundred.

    Rob: So Jonny Hogg said universities in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea andChina were in the top forty.

    Alice: Yes, mainland China has six universities on the list and there are two inAfrica.

    Rob: OK here’s another question – when you choose a university does it reallymatter if it has a good ranking?

    Alice: Hmmm, the reasons for choosing a university? I suppose its reputation isimportant.

    Rob: Of course, although the authors of this new list say reputation is not asimportant as it used to be. I choose my university because it offered the subjectI wanted to do.

    Alice: Really? I chose mine because it was close to home and it had a lively socialscene.

    Rob: A good reason! Let’s hear the reasons why Kate and Kaz chose their places tostudy.

    Extract 4:

    Well I went to Edinburgh University, and I chose Edinburgh because I love the city, theuniversity had a very good reputation, and it was close enough to my home town withoutactually being my hometown so it was only about an hour away, so I could go home atweekends if I wanted to.

    I went to Sussex University in the 1970s, and I chose Sussex above other universities,because it had an excellent reputation in biology which was the subject I studied.

    Alice: So Kate is like me. She chose somewhere that was not too far from home. Shecould go home at weekends.

    Rob: And the university in Edinburgh had a good reputation. And what about Kaz?

    Alice: For him, it had an excellent reputation for teaching biology. So it seemsreputation does actually count.

    Rob: OK Alice, it’s time to tell you what was the top university in the LondonTimes Higher Education List. You thought it was….?

    Alice: Cambridge? Am I right?

    Rob: Well Cambridge and Oxford in the UK are in the top ten, but the number oneuniversity is…Harvard in the USA.

    Alice: Of course! Harvard was going to be my second choice.

    Rob: I think you need to go back to university to do some more learning! But beforeyou do Alice, could you tell us some of the words we have learnt today?

    Alice: ResearchIncomeFundingGross domestic productInvestmentInstitutionsAnglophoneRankingReputationRob: That’s all we’ve got time for today. Thanks for joining us and see you nexttime.

    Rob/Alice: Bye.