Africa’s Six Most Popular Universities Based in South Africa

Seven out of 10 most popular universities in Africa are based in South Africa, led by the University of Pretoria.

On the top 10 list of Africa’s most popular higher learning institutions only three are not South African – the University of Nairobi (position seven), University of Lagos (position eight) and Cairo University (10). This is according to the 2020 African University Ranking, an annual list released by higher education directory and search engine uniRank.

South Africa is the most developed and industrialised economy in Africa. Its universities pull thousands of students every year from across the continent.

The survey ranked universities based on three criteria:

• being chartered, licenced and/or accredited by the appropriate higher education-related organization in each country
• offering at least four-year undergraduate degrees (bachelor degrees) or postgraduate degrees (master or doctoral degrees)
• delivering courses predominantly in a traditional, face-to-face, non-distance education format

More universities are now rethinking the face-to-face teaching model in a world remade by the Covid-19 crisis. The social distancing rules and closure of institutions has seen universities switch to virtual platforms.

UniRank says that the listing aims to provide a non-academic League Table of the top Universities in Africa based on valid and unbiased web metrics provided by independent web intelligence sources rather than data submitted by the Universities themselves.

Below is the top 20 list of the 2020 African University Ranking:

1. University of Pretoria – South Africa
2. University of Cape Town – South Africa
3. University of the Witwatersrand – South Africa
4. University of Johannesburg – South Africa
5. University of KwaZulu-Natal – South Africa
6. Universiteit Stellenbosch  – South Africa
7. University of Nairobi – Kenya
8. University of Lagos – Nigeria
9. North-West University – South Africa
10. Cairo University – Egypt
11. University of the Western Cape – South Africa
12. Addis Ababa University – Ethiopia
13. The American University in Cairo – Egypt
14. University of Ghana – Ghana
15. The German University in Cairo – Egypt
16. 16. Kenyatta University – Kenya
17. Rhodes University – South Africa
18. Mansoura University – Egypt
19. Universiteit van die Vrystaat – South Africa
20. Makerere University – Uganda

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