THE University of Wales, Newport, has yet again been rated the worst university in Wales in a national newspaper rankings.

The Sunday Times University Guide 2012 ranks Newport at 118 – worse than the University of Glamorgan, Glyndwr University and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

It has the highest graduate unemployment rate – 11.7 per cent – of any other Welsh university.

The guide, now in its 15th year, gave the university a teaching excellence score of 72.6 per cent – the lowest out of the nine Welsh universities.

The overall UK ranking for Newport has fallen as well, from 115 in 2011 to 118th out of 122 universities in Britain.

However it was ranked the fourth best in the nation for students getting graduate level jobs.

Cardiff remains the highest ranked Welsh university, and is now within the top 20 in the UK, while Swansea University has overtaken Aberystwyth to second place.

A spokesman for the University of Wales Newport said league tables were an ineffective way of measuring its success.

“As well as serving some of the poorest areas in the UK and being unique in Wales in the number of opportunities we provide for part time and mature students, our priorities are focused on opening up educational opportunities to those who may not otherwise have them.

"This means that we are never going to score highly in these selective measures of success and they are not relevant to the things we hold dear.

“We could quite easily focus on driving up our league table position but it would mean abandoning the priority we place on supporting those who rely on us the most.”

University of Glamorgan, Glyndwr University in Wrexham, and Cardiff Metropolitan came fifth, sixth and eighth respectively.

However one University, Swansea Metropolitan, did not take part.