Monday, February 12, 2007
Chinese law school rankings
There has been a bit of discussion over at the Chinalaw list about rankings for Chinese law faculties; here is the result. I have edited the contributions a bit. ADDED FEB. 13: Let me stress that we don't know the methodology behind these rankings; in particular, so far as I know, the universities don't supply data to the rankers. For a critique of the rankings (in Chinese), see here.
From Wei Luo:
The most popular ranking of Chinese higher education institutes has been done by 武书连 《中国大学评价》 (here). He and his associate also rank Chinese law schools here. Unfortunately, the details of his ranking methodology is not described at his website.
Zhu Suli conducted a project to rank the most cited Chinese legal scholars a few years ago. One of his articles on this topic (从法学著述引证看中国法学--中国法学研究现状考察之二) can be found here.
John Graham has kindly translated the university and law school rankings at the above links. Thanks also to Xin Dai for pointing out that under the Department of Education's classification system, "law" here is an umbrella term encompassing the majors of law, Marxism, sociology, politics, and public security.
Universities
1. Tsinghua University
2. Beijing University
3. Zhejiang University
4. Shanghai Jiaotong University
5. Nanjing University
6. Fudan University (Shanghai)
7. Huazhong University of Science and Technology
8. Wuhan University
9. Jilin University (Changchun)
10. Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityLaw Schools
1. A++ Beijing University
2. A++ People's University (Beijing)
3. A++ Wuhan University
4. A++ Tsinghua University
5. A+ China University of Political Science and Law (Zhengfa Daxue)
6. A+ Jilin University
7. A+ Fudan University
8. A+ Southwest University of Political Science and Law (Xinan Zhengfa Daxue)(Chongqing)
9. A Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Zhongnan Caijing Zhengfa Daxue)
10. A Zhejiang University
11. A Xiamen University
12. A Zhongshan University
13. A East China University of Politics and Law
14. A Nanjing University
15. A Nankai University (Tianjin)
16. A Huazhong Normal University
17. A Suzhou University
18. A East China Normal University
19. A Shandong University
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/china_law_prof_blog/2007/02/chinese_law_sch.html
I'm afraid that Mr. Wu's ranking is based on mere speculation, household perception, and personal feeliing. It lacks scientific methodology. As China's university education is expanding at an unprecedented speed, there is increasingly growing need for college ranking, which can serve as directions for high school students and their parents. Mr. Wu's ranking happened to meet the market needs. However, it is too unprofessional to be called a commercial ranking, much worse than the American News and World Reports Ranking, its counterpart in the U.S. No serious scholar or student in China believes in its credibility.
Having said these, I do not deny that the ranking of university/law schools (especially the top 10) represent some facts, but the ranking of other schools should not be given much credit.
Still worse, it is said that the President of a lower-ranked university was informed the way to boost its own rank, not by upgrading its quality, but, by paying a sum of money.
Posted by: Dawei | Feb 13, 2007 10:30:08 AM