It has come to our attention that recent news reports in Apple Daily concerning the results of CityU’s QS world university rankings have not been accurate. We strongly object to it and would like to present the following facts to correct these gross inaccuracies:- Every year CityU submits data on student numbers for that year to QS for evaluation in accordance with QS’s rules, criteria and definitions. We have never used enrollment numbers of our summer students for submission to the QS exercise.
QS conducts a vigorous audit of all university submissions every year, including CityU’s submissions. QS audited all the data, including information on student numbers, submitted by CityU in early spring of this year in accordance with regular practice. In addition, QS rankings are also regularly audited by an independent international audit body. CityU’s data submissions were confirmed to be accurate by QS based on QS’s own audit.
Due to the use of different definitions and operating modes, data on student numbers submitted by all Hong Kong universities have always varied and are inevitably different from those submitted to the UGC. Such differences are commonly found in the data submitted to QS by other universities from other parts of the world and in the data on official websites of those universities’ home governments. President Way Kuo has already instructed the relevant office to commission one of the Big Four accounting firms to run an independent audit of our QS data submissions and to report to the University. This additional measure will fulfil CityU’s requirement for ultra-high standards in all our operations.
Communications and Public Relations Office
13 November 2017