Job skills key to university rankings

Five universities on the Chinese mainland have been ranked among the world's top 50 universities for student employability.

The latest edition of Quacquarelli Symonds Graduate Employability Rankings listed China's Tsinghua University in 10th place, followed by Peking University in 23rd.

Tsinghua was the best performer in south Asia, ahead of Japan's University of Tokyo (14th) and the University of Hong Kong (20th).

Other Chinese mainland entrants in the top 50 include Fudan (27th), Zhejiang University (38th), and Shanghai Jiaotong University (46th).

In all, 37 Chinese universities were ranked within the world's top 500 - 25 from the Chinese mainland, six from Taiwan and six from Hong Kong.

The results show that Chinese universities are providing global and national economies with skilled, high-achieving graduates.

"Chinese universities have excelled in producing talent that is increasingly competitive globally," said Zhang Yan, China director at QS Intelligence Unit. "In the future, with strength in different disciplines, Chinese universities should work more closely with employers in different parts of the world, in areas of research and development, employability and entrepreneurship."

Zhang said she believes this could further enhance the competitiveness of students and cultivate future leaders for China and the world.

Quacquarelli Symonds, a global higher education analyst and career advice specialist, named Stanford in the United States as the world leader, followed by the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University.

US universities took five of the top-10 slots - and 31 of the top-100 slots - while the UK universities of Cambridge (6th) and Oxford (8th) were ranked most highly by employers.

Each institution's score was compiled using five indicators - alumni outcome, employer-student connections, employer reputation, partnerships with employers and graduate employment rate.

Hannele Niemi, professor of education at the University of Helsinki, commended the Chinese universities' progress.

"The investments that China has allocated to higher education have had an impact," Niemi said. "China has also decisively made high efforts for promoting international cooperation."