MANILA, Philippines (UPDATE) - University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman and 3 other top educational institutions in the country fell in the 2012 World University Rankings list published Tuesday by education and career network Quacquarelli Symonds.

UP Diliman dropped to 348th overall this year from 332nd place in 2011.

Its best ranking was 262nd place in 2009.

This year, UP Diliman is 151st worldwide in Arts and Humanities but is only 326th in Engineering and Technology and 318th in Natural Sciences.

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), which placed higher than UP Diliman in 234th place in 2009, plunged to the 451st to 500th bracket this year.

It ranked 360th in 2011.

Ateneo is 226th worldwide in Arts and Humanities, but ranked only 391st in Social Sciences and Management for 2012.

De La Salle University (DLSU) and University of Santo Tomas (UST) are ranked above 601st place with other schools.

UP Diliman, ADMU, DLSU, and UST also slipped in the Asian university rankings released earlier this year.

The top 10 universities in the world this year, according to QS, are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States)

2. University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)

3. Harvard University (United States)

4. University College London (United Kingdom)

5. University of Oxford (United Kingdom)

6. Imperial College London (United Kingdom)

7. Yale University (United States)

8. University of Chicago (United States)

9. Princeton University (United States)

10. California Institute of Technology (United States)

The University of Hong Kong, which placed 23rd, is the highest-ranked Asian institution.

The National University of Singapore (NUS), meanwhile, is in 25th place.

"In China, seven of the top ten universities have gone up, and both Peking and Tsinghua universities remain in the top 50. Hong Kong also has three universities in the top 40," said Quacquarelli Symonds' John O’Leary.

"South Korea is another Asian country to see its universities flourish, with three in the top 100. Seoul National University has moved into the top 40, while the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has registered the biggest rise in the top 100," he added.

MIT's rise as the world's top university "coincides with a global shift in emphasis toward science and technology," according to QS head of research Ben Sowter. “MIT perfects a blueprint that is now being followed by a new wave of cutting-edge tech-focused institutions, especially in Asia."

Danny Byrne, editor of TopUniversities.com, attributed the rise in Chinese schools' rankings to a government-driven surge in scientific research.

"China's top nine universities all improved their scores for research citations following a series of high-profile government investments, including the doubling of the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (NSFC) budget in 2010," he said.

The rankings are based on six indicators: academic reputation from global survey (40%), employer reputation from global survey (10%), citations per faculty from SciVerse Scopus (20%), faculty-student ratio (20%), proportion of international students (5%), and proportion of international faculty (5%).