Africa has been represented in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-2016 list which shows the best global universities. These rankings are self acclaimed as the only international university performance tables to judge world class universities across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Uganda’s Makerere University is ranked as fifth (5th) on the continent.
Ranked the best six in ascending order are California Institute of Technology (USA), University of Oxford (UK), Stanford University (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) and Harvard University (USA)
Africa’s ranking being represented by 12 univerities; South Africa takes the bulk of the universities and Uganda’s Makerere University comes in 5th after four South African Universities.
| Rank | Name | Country | |
| 1 | 120 | University of Cape Town | South Africa |
| 2 | 201-250 | University of the Witwatersrand | South Africa |
| 3 | 301-350 | Stellenbosch University | South Africa |
| 4 | 401-500 | University of KwaZulu-Natal | South Africa |
| 5 | 401-500 | Makerere University | Uganda |
| 6 | 501 – 600 | University of Pretoria | South Africa |
| 7 | 601-800 | Alexandria University | Egypt |
| 8 | 601-800 | Cairo University | Egypt |
| 9 | 601-800 | University of Ibadan | Nigeria |
| 10 | 601-800 | University of Nairobi | Kenya |
| 11 | 601-800 | University of South Africa | South Africa |
| 12 | 601-800 | Suez Canal University | Egypt |
Makerere Universities’ statistics against University of Cape Town
Performance indicators used to come up with these rankings were grouped into five areas of as seen in the chart:
America was represented highest with 147 followed by UK with 78.