Abstract:

Ranking of universities has become a common practice in higher education the world over. Ranking of universities has been used as a measure of the quality of education provided by that institution. Admittedly, quality has been defined differently by stakeholders. The major indicator that has been used by ranking agencies to rank universities is the institution’s research output and to some extent academic peer review, employer review, lecturer-student ratio, proportion of lecturers and students that are international. It is claimed by rankers that the major reason for ranking universities is to provide prospective students with information that will enable them to make informed choices about which university to enrol with. While this might be true with universities in developed countries, the situation may be slightly different from students in developing countries who may use different performance indicators for deciding on which university to enrol with.

However, Sanoff (2007) argues that …simply because a university ranks at the top of its category does not mean that it is the best choice for every individual. There are other factors that students take into account when deciding which university to enrol with. It is conjectured in this study that these various stakeholders use different performance indicators for ranking Zimbabwean universities and that the rankings are just subjective constructions of the rankers. It is therefore, against this background that this study is investigating the performance indicators used by students, parents/guardians, employers, professional associations, and the Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education (ZIMCHE) to rank universities in Zimbabwe. The study adopts a qualitative approach to investigating this issue where questionnaires and interviews are the main data mining instruments.

Preliminary findings of the study seem to indicate that students use the following factors among others to decide which university to enrol with; availability of accommodation, fees structure and nature of the programmes offered by the university. More comprehensive findings are expected in April 2017 when most of the data will have been collected.

Keywords:

Stakeholders, quality, ranking.