Malaysia is losing out in the unrelenting battle for international competitiveness among nations, with Malaysian universities even losing out to Southeast Asian universities in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines and to universities in Africa and South America – something completely unthinkable in the first three decades of our nationhood.
For the second consecutive year, Malaysia had fallen completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) - Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.
The national shame of Malaysia falling completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) - Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings is being compounded by the ignominy of Malaysian universities losing out not only to top universities in Singapore, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea but also to other South East Asian nations like Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, as well to those in Africa and South America – like the University of Cape Town (No. 179 in 2008 THES-QS ranking), the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil No. 196) ) and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina No. 197).
For the second consecutive year, there is not only not a single university in the 2008 THES-QS Top 200 Universities list, there is also not a single university in the separate ranking of Top 100 Universities for five subject areas – Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities; Life Sciences and Biomedicine; and Technology.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) were in the 2006 Ranking, placed No. 185 and 192 respectively. UKM plunged to 309 last year and improved to 250 this year while UM fell to 246 last year improving slightly to 230 this year – but both remain outside the Top 200 Universities ranking.
The government named Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as the Apex University but it has a dismal international rankings after being included once in the Top 200 Universities list – No. 111 in 2004, No. 326 in 2005, 277 in 2006, No. 307 in 2007 and No. 313 in 2008.
It is both sad and pathetic that our Apex University, the USM, at No. 313 ranking, is not only left far behind in South East Asia by Singapore (National University of Singapore No. 30 and Nanyang Technological University No. 77) but also by Thailand (Chulalongkorn University No. 166), Indonesia (University of Indonesia No. 287) and the Philippines (Ateneo de Manila University No. 254 and University of the Philippines No. 276).
Until last year, Malaysian universities were all ranked well ahead of the Indonesian universities, but in the 2008 THES-QS World Top Universities ranking, Indonesian universities are catching up with Malaysian universities in leaps and bounds.
The performance of Malaysian universities in the 2008 THES-QS Top 100 lists for the five subject areas are even more dismal, with not a single university making into the five lists for two years consecutively although Malaysia secured four of these 500 prestigious slots in 2006 - University of Malaya was ranked 49 in Social Sciences and 95 in Natural Sciences, UKM was placed No. 62 in Natural Sciences, and University Sains Malaysia placed No. 96 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine.
After being placed in four of the 500 slots in the five Top 100 Universities for the five subjects in 2006, Malaysian universities has been conspicuously missing from all the five listings of Top 100 Universities for the five categories for the past two years.
There are over 30 “elite of elite” universities, which are not only ranked in the Top 200 Universities list, but also ranked in every one of the five Top 100 subject list.
Universities in the Asia-Pacific region which are in this exclusive “elite of elites” list include six in Australia, two in China, one each in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. Why is Malaysia not in this “elite of elites” listing and when will Malaysia have a university which will have all-round excellence as to be included in this list?
Malaysians have not been told the real and true reasons for the shocking performance of Malaysian universities in the THES-QS Top 200 Universities ranking. Malaysian universities have been consistent in increasingly deplorable results in world rankings, whether the THES-QS, Shanghai Jiao Tong University World’s Best 500 Universities or the Newsweek’s Top 100 Global Universities.
If the government is serious in wanting to create a world-class university system, it must end the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the universities and fully restore the policy of meritocracy and academic excellence coupled with social need to provide university education opportunities to economically-backward Malaysians regardless of race.
It is the NEP policy and mentality which caused University of Malaya to fall 200 rankings behind University of Singapore in less than four decades as both universities had started on the same footing some 50 years ago. University of Malaya is ranked No. 230 as compared to the 30th ranking for National University of Singapore.
If Malaysia is to get back to the trail of world-class academic excellence, all universities should be allowed to enroll the most qualified students, employ the most competent professors and researchers with competitive remunerations and restore a culture of academic excellence and freedom.
For a start, the Higher Education Minister must ask the Cabinet to end the present fraudulent meritocracy using both STPM and matriculation by having a common university entrance examination.
This is the recommendation of the World Bank study on “Malaysia and the Knowledge Economy: Building a World-Class Higher Education System” submitted to the government in March last year.
Let the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin tell Parliament and the nation what action his ministry has taken on the recommendations of the World Bank study to bring about the institutional changes without which there is no way for Malaysian universities to return to world-class university status.
Lim Kit Siang
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