Palestinian university ranks seventh in Arab world

An-Najah University in Nablus ranks seventh in a list of the top 100 universities in the Arab world, according to findings published by Spanish public research body CSIC. An-Najah is ranked as the top Palestinian university and is among the top 5 percent of 22,000 universities worldwide, a study published by the group in July 2011 found. University President Rami Hamdallah thanked everyone who had contributed to helping An-Najah become one of the region's most prestigious centers of education. An-Najah offers 74 bachelor degree programs, 42 masters programs and is the only Palestinian university that has a PhD program in chemistry, Hamdallah said during a news conference. The university will soon have a second PhD program in physics, he added. Around 8,000 students applied for course in the new academic year but only 4,000 were accepted. The group that conducted the study, the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, or CSIC, is part of the Spanish ministry of education and published rankings for universities across the globe.