Are we letting the rankings rule us now?

ACROSS the world, and increasingly here at home, universities are caught in an endless race for visibility. We celebrate every rise in global ranking, but few pause to ask what the climb costs. In this environment, academics are often stretched thin, juggling large classes, student mentoring, grant applications, and publishing, all while filling in endless administrative documents. It feels less like a noble pursuit of knowledge and more like a rat race, where everyone runs frantically to achieve their KPIs, no matter the toll.

Let me be clear: rankings are not inherently wrong. Without any form of external benchmarking, we risk complacency and a drop in standards. They can be a useful tool for motivating improvement and accountability. The danger, however, is not in the metric itself, but in our obsession with it.