The University of Nairobi (UoN) has fallen from the top 1,000 global universities ranking. The latest ranking dubbed QS World University Rankings 2026 has ranked the University of Nairobi in the 1,001 to 1,200 bracket, underlining its continued wrangles and cash flow difficulties.
This is a sharp decline from the 901 to 950 bracket that UoN was ranked in the previous year. The local university which is reputed as the most advanced now ranks in the same category with Uganda’s Makerere University and Nigeria’s University of Lagos.
University of Nairobi was the only Kenyan university that made the list that assessed and ranked over 1,500 institutions across 106 countries. UoN was qualified as having a total student population of 31,248 and 2,670 total faculty staff.
The university however maintained a relatively strong ranking in the Employment Outcomes section with a global ranking of 72 and a core of 95.6. This section assesses how well a university’s graduates perform in the job market.
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Out of all the universities in the list, Sub-Saharan Africa had only 19 universities. Out of these 19 institutions, only 3 improved in their ranking.
“With only three of the 19 institutions in Sub-Saharan African improving their rankings, universities need to ensure that they keep up with advancements in higher education worldwide,” Ben Sowter, the QS Senior Vice President said.
Universities from South Africa top the list of universities from Sub-Saharan Africa that made the rankings. 11 of the universities were from South Africa. They included the University of Cape Town, University of Johannesburg and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Cape Town improved its position from 171 to 150.
In the overall ranking, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was ranked as the best university in the world, while nearly 500 universities have improved their performance since last year. Of these, the biggest climber is Sunway University in Malaysia, which has risen over 120 places.
United States’ Harvard University was ranked at position five while the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom was ranked at position 4.
