The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak went before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris yesterday to extend his 1Malaysia motto to 1World.
Four years ago, at the University of Malaya’s centennial celebrations in June 2005, as Deputy Prime Minister, Najib threw the challenge to University of Malaya to raise its 89th position among the world’s top 100 universities in Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) ranking in 2004 to 50 by the year 2020.
Instead of accepting Najib’s challenge with incremental improvement of its THES ranking, the premier university went into a free fall for two years followed by completely disappearing from the Top 200 Universities ranking in the past two years.
After being ranked in 2004 at 89th position in the THES-QS World Top Universities, University of Malaya fell to 169th in 2005 and 192nd placing in 2006, and in the past two years of 2007 and 2008 rankings, not only University of Malaya but Malaysia fell out of the 200 Top Universities altogether!
We can only hope that Najib’s 1Malaysia and 1World calls will not be as dismal as his call in 2005 to University of Malaya to be among the world’s top 50 universities.
Tomorrow, Malaysians will know whether Malaysian universities could redeem themselves and get back into the World Top 200 Universities ranking when the 2009 THES-QS World Top Universities ranking is released, or whether Malaysia has fallen into the “black hole” of international university competitiveness stakes, unable to prove their academic quality, excellence and worth in the international arena. Continue reading “Tomorrow D-Day for Malaysian universities – THES-QS Top 200 Universities Ranking 2009”