According to the commission's rankings released last week, Mahidol, Chulalongkorn and Chiang Mai universities received top ratings in both teaching and research categories. The criteria used to rank the universities in regard to the quality of teaching included student-teacher ratios, faculty resources, financial standing, the "international-ity" of the institution, and the quality of education. Criteria used to rank university research programmes included the number of works researchers had published in national and internationally recognised journals, the number or type of awards won, and the usefulness and applicability of the institute's research for practical purposes.

Only 51 out of the country's 138 universities submitted the required information to the commission and consented to be part of the first-ever ranking. Thammasat and some reputable private universities were among those that chose to opt out of the rankings.

On the whole, the results did not deviate from the public's perception based on the reputations of these universities. But that didn't stop several university administrators, including those from universities that had volunteered to participate in the ranking, from bitterly criticising the outcomes, which were not to their liking - ie being ranked lower than expected relative to other institutes of higher learning.

The Commission insisted that the measures and methodology used in the ranking were sound and produced a reliable approximation of each university's standing in relation to other providers of tertiary education. It was hoped that if the rankings were to be regularly updated, it could make it easier for high school graduates and their parents to narrow their choices of which university to attend, as the exercise also requires universities to disclose information to the public.

But the complaints of university administrators about the commission's rankings should not all be disregarded as sour grapes. For example, Thammasat University's rector said his university decided not to take part in the assessment because officials there felt that the commission's evaluation was too narrowly defined. It must be pointed out that Thammasat would have been ranked among the top universities if it had participated in the commission's assessment, although its ranking might not have matched its opinion of itself.

There may be some truth to the rector's objection. Given the wide variety in size and functions of different universities, it is virtually impossible to come up with accurate and fair comparisons. For example, most of the highly rated universities are long-established institutes, which are either entitled to huge budgetary allocations or are in possession of assets and financial resources that are unavailable to others.

Most of the lowest-ranked universities such as Rajabhat University, which has campuses in provincial cities throughout the country, are set up as "community" colleges with the main emphasis being on providing education to the masses as part of community development - not the pursuit of academic excellence. But it is too far-fetched to accuse the commission of being biased against new universities or community colleges like Rajabhat with the malicious intent to hold them down.

The ranking of universities, controversial as it may be, should be seen as an intellectually stimulating exercise to spark a lively, rational debate - not emotional outbursts - among university administrators and others who are interested in education reform in general and development of tertiary education in particular. One doesn't have to agree with everything in the rankings, which still have much room for improvement and refinement. Anyway most people do not consider the rankings an absolute arbiter of a university's performance as a provider of higher education. They have served to encourage members of the public to discuss what constitutes a good university. But much more needs to be done to make the rankings a better, more finely tuned instrument to compare universities.