Congrats to University of Malaya (UM) for making a come-back in the THES-QS World Universities Rankings 2009 to be among the world’s top 200 universities – climbing 50 places from last year (No. 230) to rank No. 180 this year.
Malaysia’s loss of face in the past two years in being totally excluded from the Top World 200 Universities ranking has been retrieved somewhat with UM’s return to the Top World 200 Universities bracket but there is still a long way to go for Malaysian universities to establish their excellence and international competitiveness for at least six reasons:
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This is still a far cry from UM’s previous rankings in the THES-QS Top World 200 Universities – 89th in 2004 and 169 in 2005, before falling to 192 in 2006 and out of the Top 200 bracket in the following two years (ranked 246 in 2007 and 230 in 2008).
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In June 2005, at UM’s centennial celebrations, then Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak challenged UM to raise its then 89th position among the world’s top 100 universities in the THES-QS ranking to 50 by the year 2020. After four years, UM had fallen 91 rankings although this is not as bad as falling 157 rankings in 2007. Is Najib’s challenge for UM to be among the world’s Top 50 universities “an impossible dream”?