Oxford Brookes University has been placed above Oxford University in a league table ranking English degree courses.

The University Guide published by The Guardian newspaper has placed Oxford Brookes in fourth place and Oxford University ninth.

The guide has separate tables for each degree subject and an overall table which ranks Oxford in fourth place and Brookes 53rd out of 122 universities.

An Oxford Brookes spokesman said: "We are very pleased with the subject rankings. Overall, our position has not changed much since last year."

Universities are judged on teaching, drop-out rates, research, the number of Students from poor areas of Britain with low participation in higher education and the amount spent on students.

Elisabeth Jay, English professor and associate head of the school of humanities at Oxford Brookes, said: "I think one of the strengths of our course is the amount of choice students have in our modular system. Students are encouraged to reflect, particularly in their third year, on what they have gained from studying English and that makes them highly employable. "It is also an English department that tries hard to get the right mix between teaching and research and make sure that research informs teach- ing.

"Like other universities, we make sure our curriculum is constantly re-visited and revised to make sure it is keeping abreast of the subject."

Oxford Brookes comes top in the league table for town and country planning courses and is third for its art and design course, directly behind Oxford University's Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.

Prof John Glasson, head of the school of planning at Oxford Brookes said: "We are very pleased to be at the top. What is important in these league tables is the quality of teaching which is very good at Brookes, and that comes down to having good staff."

Oxford University tops the table for biosciences and computer science.