Which universities in West Africa are the best? Who are the top global universities in West Africa? The following is a list of 9 top universities in West Africa which made it to the world university rankings compiled by the Times Higher Education World Rankings for 2022

This year’s league table, which is trusted globally by students, instructors, governments, and industry professionals, shows how the Covid-19 epidemic has begun to alter global higher education achievement.

University of Cape Cape tops the list even though a surprising new entrant to the rankings.

Best Universities in West Africa – 2022 Ranking

From the information that we are provided by institutions across the globe,the Times Higher Education rigorously builds up these West Africa University Rankings. This is how data from more than 1,600 global institutions are accessed to produce the tables

Rank	University	Country
1	University of Cape Coast	Ghana
2	University of Ibadan	Nigeria
3	University of Lagos	Nigeria
4	Covenant University	Nigeria
5	Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology	Ghana
6	University of Ghana	Ghana
7	University of Ilorin	Nigeria
8	University of Nigeria Nsukka	Nigeria
9	Obafemi Awolowo University	Nigeria

Top universities which did not make the list

The following West African universities provided data to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, but did not meet our eligibility criteria to receive a rank.

University	Country
African School of Economics	Benin
Lagos State University	Nigeria
University of Professional Studies	Ghana

West Africa University Rankings 2022: The Methodology

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are the only global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

13 carefully calibrated performance indicators are used to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry, and governments.

The performance indicators are grouped into five areas:

Teaching: The learning environment;
Research: Volume, income, and reputation;
Citations: Research influence;
International outlook: Staff, students, and research;
Industry income: Knowledge transfer.

Number of Universities in West Africa 2020, by Country

Which West African countries have the most number of universities? How many universities does each country have?

West Africa has a total of 527 universities. Nigeria has the highest number of universities in West Africa and even the whole of Africa. As of July 2020, Nigeria counted 262 higher institutions. In August 2021 though, the National Universities Commission released a list of 197 accredited universities operating in the country.

Many African universities are located in North African countries. Tunisia has 204 universities, the second-highest number, while Morocco has 153. Algeria and Egypt followed, with 104 and 70 universities. Ghana has 70 universities, the second-highest after Nigeria.