Top 10 Universities In Africa 2022

If you are looking for the Top Universities in Africa, you will find the universities occupying the Top 10 Universities in Africa for this year. They are the best universities that would interest you to know more about them or even apply to the school. They are the most sort higher education institution in Africa by students from Africa and overseas.

Although these universities have been numerically ranked based on their positions in the overall Best African Universities rankings. Each institution was evaluated based on its research performance and ratings by members of the academic community worldwide and in the region.

Numerous institutions are located throughout the continent of Africa, and several of them have been ranked among the greatest in the world by several trustworthy organizations. These colleges are dispersed across the continent and stand out for their superior education. Despite some of the drawbacks of attending schools in Africa, certain universities have made great efforts to stand out and provide the highest possible standard of education to their students.

In this article, RNN highlights the top 10 best universities in Africa, offering a variety of choices for admission seekers and in-depth knowledge for researchers. The list is a combination of Federal, State, and private institutions across Africa.

1. University of Cape Town

The University of Cape Town’s campus is located at the foot of Table Mountain, offering spectacular views of Devil’s Peak and across the city. This university was founded in 1829, making it the oldest university in the country and the second oldest in Africa, behind the University of Sierra Leone, which was established two years earlier.

The University of Cape Town was originally incorporated as a public university by a private act of Parliament in 1918. At present, it is incorporated and structured by an institutional statute issued under the provisions of the Higher Education Act, of 1997.

The main campus contains many teaching faculties, the main library and some halls of residence. The middle and lower campuses are home to most of the student residences, sports facilities and some academic departments. Academic departments are grouped into six faculties which are- Commerce, Engineering and the Built Environment, Health Sciences, Humanities, Science and Law.

2. University of Kwazulu-Natal

The South African University of Kwazulu-Natal is a young university, formed only as recently as 2004 by a merger of previous institutions. Today it has five campuses around the KwaZulu-Natal province in the southeast of the country.

The university has links with over 250 universities across the world. The Council of the University of Natal voted on 31 May 2002 to offer the post of Vice-Chancellor and University Principal to world-renowned medical scientist and former Medical Research Council President Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, who assumed office on 1 September 2002.

He was entrusted with leading the University of Natal into the merger with the University of Durban-Westville. In so doing, he became the last Vice-Chancellor of the University of Natal. Professor Makgoba succeeded Professor Brenda Gourley as Vice-Chancellor. Having served a brief stint as the interim Vice-Chancellor in 2004 he was formally appointed as the founding Vice-Chancellor of the newly merged University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was installed at a ceremony on 30 September 2005.

Academic programmes are divided into four colleges, including the college of agriculture, engineering and science, the college of health sciences, the college of humanities and the college of law and management studies.

3. University of Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand is a public research university based in Johannesburg. The university was Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation. The region is the most abundant gold of any location worldwide.

The university grew significantly in the late 20th century, and the campus has been expanding with many new buildings. That time was also a period of protest against apartheid policies, and the university campus was divided. Nonetheless, many prominent black leaders graduated from the university.

The university has an enrolment of 40,259 students as of 2018, of which approximately 20% live on campus in the university’s 17 residences, 63% of the university’s total enrolment is for undergraduate study, with 35% being postgraduate and the remaining 2 per cent being Occasional Students.

The 2017 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) places Wits University, with its overall score, as the highest-ranked university in Africa.

4. Stellenbosch University

Stellenbosch University is located in South Africa’s Western Cape and is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Is also the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Saharan Africa together with the University of Cape Town which received full university status on the same day in 1918.

The institution became Stellenbosch College in 1881 and was located in the current Arts Department. In 1887 this college was renamed Victoria College, when it acquired university status on 2 April 1918 it was renamed once again to Stellenbosch University.

In December 2014, specialists at the university performed the first successful penis transplantation on a 21-year-old man.

5. University of Pretoria

Pretoria was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg-based Transvaal University College. The university is the fourth South African institution in continuous operation to be awarded university status. The institution is organised into nine faculties and a business school. Established in 1920, the University of Pretoria Faculty of Veterinary Science is the second oldest veterinary school in Africa and the only veterinary school in South Africa.

In 1949, the university launched the first MBA programme outside North America, and the university’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) has consistently been ranked the top business school in Africa for executive education. It has also been placed in the top 50 in the world. In 2012, the Financial Times ranked the GIBS Executive MBA 1st in Africa and 60th in the world.

6. Cairo University

Cairo university is also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu’ad al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt’s premier public university. Its main campus is in Giza, immediately across the Nile from Cairo.

It was founded on 21 December 1908, however, after being housed in various parts of Cairo, its faculties, beginning with the Faculty of Arts, were established on its current main campus in Giza in October 1929. It is the second oldest institution of higher education in Egypt after Al Azhar University, notwithstanding the pre-existing higher professional schools that later became constituent colleges of the university.

The university currently enrols approximately 155,000 students in 20 faculties and 3 institutions. It counts three Nobel Laureates among its graduates and is one of the 50 largest institutions of higher education in the world by enrollment.

7. Northwest University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.

Chartered by the Illinois General Assembly in 1851, Northwestern was established to serve the former Northwest Territory. The university was initially affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church but later became non-sectarian. By 1900, the university was the third-largest university in the United States.

The university is composed of eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Which includes the Kellogg School of Management, Law, Medicine, Arts and Sciences, Music, Engineering and Applied Science. The Medill School of Journalism, the School of Communication, the School of Professional Studies, Education and Social Policy. Northwestern’s campus lies along the shores of Lake Michigan in Evanston.

8. Mansoura University

Mansoura University was founded in 1972 in Mansoura city, Egypt. It is in the middle of the Nile Delta. It is one of the biggest Egyptian universities and has contributed much to the cultural and scientific life in Mansoura and Egypt.

After the changing of its name, this university participated in multiple tournaments, and every year, they bring out the victory. No one can say that they are not sufficient enough to complete the task. There is no doubt in the fact that every time whenever this university comes in front of participating in particular curricular activities, they always perform in a manner that is quite unbeatable.

This University is a public university, and it was announced to be East Delta University. But in 1973, the name has been changed to Mansoura University.

9. University of Ibadan

The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public research university in Ibadan, Nigeria. The university was founded in 1948 as University College Ibadan, one of many colleges within the University of London. It became an independent university in 1962 and is the oldest degree-awarding institution in Nigeria.

The University of Ibadan is made up of 92 academic departments organized into 17 faculties, namely Arts, Science, Basic Medical Sciences, Clinical Sciences, Agriculture, Social Sciences, Education, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy, Technology, Law, Public Health, Dentistry, Economics and Management Sciences, Renewable Natural Resources, Environmental Design and Management, and Multidisciplinary Studies.

In September 2016, it became the first Nigerian university to make the top 1000 in Times Higher Education rankings. Before that, it had always made the top 10 African Universities in Webometrics Rankings.

10. Rhodes University

Rhodes University is a public research university located in Makhanda (Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is one of four universities in the province, Established in 1904. Rhodes University is the province’s oldest university, and it is the sixth oldest South African university in continuous operation.

At the beginning of 1905, Rhodes moved from cramped quarters at St Andrew’s to the Drostdy building, which it bought from the British Government. Rhodes became a constituent college of the new University of South Africa in 1918 and it continued to expand in size. When the future of the University of South Africa came under review in 1947, Rhodes becomes an independent university.