ABSTRACT
Like internationalisation during the twentieth century, rankings are an integral component of the globalisation of higher education in the twenty-first century. And, as with internationalisation, there is a very strong prestige component to rankings, although rankings have a much greater underpinning of performance. But it is performance that is intertwined with history, human and material capital. This has led to the assumption that Africa is not part of this global ‘developed’ system. An illustration is Altbach and Balán (2007), Worldclass Worldwide, which excluded the African continent, thereby suggesting that Africa is not part of world-class higher education.
