ISLAMABAD: Like in the previous year no Pakistani university could manage to secure a place in the top 500 world universities, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the well reputed ranking agency for the higher education sector. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17 revealed that only three Pakistani universities could be included in the top 800 while another one, the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, was placed at the bottom at 800+. The ranking list concludes three universities COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) at the top, among two other varsities as it ranked 601-800, while the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the Quaid-e-Azam University were put below CIIT at numbers 601-800. The University of Oxford, United Kingdom (UK), secured the top position in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17 followed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltec) United States (US) as second and the Standford University (SU), US at 3rd. The released ranking shows that six varsities in the top 10 list belong to the US, three to the UK while one is located in Switzerland. According to the ranking, 980 institutions across the world were included in the list and 289 Asian varsities from 24 countries were placed in the conducted ranking list. Among them, Pakistan’s neighbour country – the Indian Institute of Science (IIS) edged closer to the top 200, claiming a spot in the 201-250 band. The UK is the second best represented country in the rankings, with 78 universities in the top 800, and 34 in the top 200. The UK’s Oxford University is ranked second in the world, with the University of Cambridge in the fourth place. When the Pakistani universities in the world rankings are compared with neighbouring countries, India stands at 17 universities in the ranking, 37 are from China, eight from Iran, 11 from Turkey, six from Israel, three from Saudi Arabia, five from Malaysia, 24 from South Korea and six from Hong Kong. Earlier, no Pakistani university could make a place for itself among the top 100 Asian universities, released by the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2016. The top universities rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons. The performance indicators are grouped into five areas including teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income and reputation), citations (research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry income (knowledge transfer). The teaching quality counts for 30 per cent, research counts for 30 per cent, research influence counts for 30 per cent, international outlook counts for 7.5 per cent and innovation counts for 2.5 per cent. The global concerned organisations and the experts suggested that the flawed Pakistani educational system and its HEC ranking methodology were the main causes for Pakistani universities not being included in the top 500 of the world’s best varsities. According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16, under the heads of Higher Education and Training, Pakistan’s ranking is way down at 124th out of 140 countries as compared to India at 90th, Bangladesh 122nd, Nepal 113rd, China 28th, Iran 69th, Bhutan 103rd, Qatar 27th, UAE 37th and Saudi Arabia 49th. As per QS Higher Education System Strength Rankings 2016, the Pakistani education system has been ranked at the bottom with a 9.2 score as compared to China’s 83.5, South Korea’s 80.1, Singapore’s 62.3, India’s 60.9, Chile’s 46.7, Saudi Arabia’s 36.7, Turkey’s 26.1, Kazakhstan’s 25.1, Lebanon’s 19.8, Ukraine’s 16.6 and UAE with 10.9 .