What's the Problem with U-Multirank and AHELO?

In a recent post, I discussed the contrast between the poor skills of young people in the UK (strictly speaking Northern Ireland and England) and the high regard in which  British universities are held by the brand name rankers.

There is a piece of data in the skills report from the OECD that is interesting in this respect. Figure 2.2 shows the average numeracy skills of new graduates (age 16-29, 2012). It is depressing reading. The data for tertiary graduates shows that only Italy does worse than the UK and Ireland is either the same or almost the same.The US is very slightly ahead. The top scorers are Austria, Flanders and the Czech Republic.

Something that should have everybody running around doing research and forming  committees is that British tertiary graduates are only very slightly better than most European secondary graduates and slightly better than South Koreans with less than an upper secondary qualification.

It is possible, indeed quite probable, that British tertiary graduates do better on verbal skills and likely that they could conduct themselves well in interviews. Perhaps also, it is places like the University of East London and Bolton University that are dragging down the British average. But this dramatically poor performance is such a glaring contrast to the preening self satisfaction of the higher education establishment that some discussion at least is called for.

We may be seeing an explanation for the reluctance of the Russell Group and its orbiters and the Ivy League to cooperate with U-Multirank and their disdain for the AHELO project that is in marked contrast with their support for the trusted and prestigious THE rankings. They are quite happy to be assessed on reputation, resources, income and citations but comparison with the cognitive skills of graduates from the upstarts of East Asia and perhaps Eastern and Central Europe  is something to be avoided.