University rankings may not tell the whole story

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) boasts that "we stand with the top universities in the world" on its website - first in Hong Kong, first in Asia and 23rd in the world, according to one global league table it quotes.

Rankings - when they are high - are inevitably something to shout about. They are used by institutions the world over as kite marks to attract the best students and staff, as well as funding for research and new infrastructure.

Hong Kong students and parents also seem to love rankings. In the Darwinian order of things, they naturally want to be identified with "the best". Attending a top university is perceived to be a key to a good career and prosperity, although if we look around us we know that this is not necessarily true.

Universities give little information about what those ranking scores actually mean in their marketing material, and many students and parents spend little time finding out.

At a recent British Council exhibition, low-ranked universities bemoaned that the first question potential students asked was their ranking status - even youngsters with academic records that suggested they should be looking at the bottom, rather than top, of the tables.

There are no local league tables in Hong Kong. But institutions that do well in the global rankings are happy to use those as proxies. Universities that do not feature in that league are not, unsurprisingly, fighting for a local alternative. Yet is the informal ranking of the eight government-funded institutions any fairer?