by Elizabeth Zachariah
The Malaysian Insider
October 03, 2013
Although Putrajaya continues to spend billions on education, Malaysian universities are not benefitting from it. If it’s any indication, for the third year running Malaysian universities have failed to feature in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
Meanwhile, universities in Thailand and Singapore continue to track higher as shown in the 2013-14 Times survey.
Last year alone Putrajaya allocated RM38.7 billion in its budget for education, with emphasis on improving quality and standards.
One of Putrajaya’s goals is also to make Malaysia an education hub for the region and attract some 200,000 students to local universities by 2020.
But these latest rankings show that for all the money spent and all of Putrajaya’s efforts, Malaysia’s institutions of higher learning are falling behind.
An earlier survey by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), last month saw Universiti Malaya as the only Malaysian university to be placed among the top 200 in that ranking. Even then, it dropped from 156 in 2012 to 167 this year.
The Times rankings are based on assessments of a university’s strengths using 13 indicators to measure its teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook, powered by Thomson Reuters which independently collects, analyses and verifies the data.
In the latest Times Higher Education Survey, two top universities in Singapore – The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University – improved their rankings from 29th to 26th and 86th to 76th respectively.
Thailand’s only top-400 representative, King Mongkut’s University of Technology, rose from the 351-400 group to the 301-350 band.
For the third straight year, the California Institute of Technology remained top of the list, with Harvard University and the UK’s University of Oxford sharing second place. American universities dominated the list with 7 institutions in the top 10 and 77 in the top 200 – one more than last year.
Japan’s University of Tokyo maintained its status as Asia’s top university, moving up four places to 23rd spot.
Australia’s University of Melbourne dropped to 34th from 28th last year. Saudi Arabia and Iran have no top 200 institutions, although both are represented in the 200-400 group.
Just recently, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, commenting on the QS rankings, noted that Malaysia’s ability to set up higher education institutions has not been matched by the quality of education offered because it has been done in haste.
He pointed out that while the teachers hired were qualified, it was a possibility that they might have been “probably lacking in certain areas”.
But Universiti Technologi Mara vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar defended local universities, calling those who criticised the decline “short-sighted” and adding that he was not perturbed by the drop in rankings.
Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Ghauth Jasmon also came out to say that fluctuating rankings were normal.
“No university’s ranking continues to rise. What’s important is that its ups and downs should on average be positive to show progress,” he said. – October 3,
What I hear from inside sources is that most if not all, of the Malaysia’s universities do not want to participate in THES’ annual surveys as they view THES ‘unfriendly’ to them as it is very objective and analytical in their assessments.
They only participate with QS which is seen to be more lenient and friendly but even then they are falling in the rankings there.
Notice how our VCs, especially Ghauth Jasmon, give all sorts of excuses for their failures, and are in denial.
If a university is a good university, it can withstand any stringent assessments by peers and be ranked up there, like NUS which is ranked 24 and 26 on QS and THES. and NTU at 41 and 76 respectively.
The country aspire to be an ‘education hub’ but at the rate we are performing, all our money will just go to waste as is usual. Let us hope our universities will not need to be reclassified as ‘high schools’.
Maybe our Ministers and senior officials need not buy their degree from degree mills. I am sure they may be able to get a degree from one of our local universities if they put in a little effort.
///Malaysian universities have failed to feature in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings…///
This is expected when smart students are not given a place to study in local universities. Politics has ruined the standards of our universities.
They know that their own kind don’t have what it takes. So they make it in such a way that they will have a qualification and a name and at least they can tell the world that they have something to show. But of course everybody know in their hearts just how great they are and it is politeness that keep them from reviewing the ugly truth. Who wants to know that they are not pandai or useless or whatever negative words of judgements ? JPA should sponsor the smart to attend Yale and all the top publicized universities and give them a contract to work for Malaysia to make sure it is a value added education. The rakyat has been allowing the politicians to go on and on the same old ways.
The respective university’s senate, court and top management must be all held to account as to how they are planning, visioning and directing the direction of their respective universities. No point for Chancellors and Pro-chancellors to congratulate their universities for their ‘achievements’ when there is in fact none.
Our Vice Chancellors are a bunch of loosers…….
“…Putrajaya allocated RM38.7 billion in its budget for education, with emphasis on improving quality and standards…”
Emphasis on improving quality and standards??
Laugh die me (direct translation from the Hokkien, “Chio Xi Gua”).
Teachers are demoralised, students are demoralised, parents are demoralised, and the Minister for Education is in Fantasy Land telling anybody who will listen what a wonderful education system we have in Malaysia.
Malaysia – Endless Possibilities – and every single one stinks.
One of the achievements if there is real quality and real standard is that the exam results would show good marks and these exam are the kind that make you remember what you study, understand what you have studied and produce quality answers to the questions. Not the vomit kind and at the end of the day, one still cannot understand what is 1+1 = 2 and still go off thinking that 1+1=4
If those who are supposed to educate us are ignorant, how can the students be expected to be any better?
It takes lots of things to prove you are smart, but only one thing to prove you are ignorant. This speaks so much of our education system.
Anyone that has spent significant time in places like Greece, Spain and Italy knows that for many future young graduates in this country their future is the same as in those countries – with multiple graduate degrees and they have to go wash toilets and clean windows in a foreign land – particularly for bumis (especially in Sabah and Sarawak) and probably also the Indian community – not the the Chinese would be immune to.
The corruption, lies, excuses and abuse of power of UMNO/BN – they are no different than the profligacy and apathy of govts of Greece, Spain, Italy for few decades that has led to their current state..
37.8 billion allocation for education?? Is that so!!
OK. Lets work out the real figure.
In the past umno used to overprice things by 2000 times (remember the laptop issue). Now umno has upped that to something like 7000 times. Let me use an midway number of say 4000 times. Well not quite midway but I am not seeking precision here, alright.
Here we go. 38billion. That means 38,000,000,000 ringgit. Wow. Thats a lot of money. But wait a second. Divide that by 4000. And the real number is, tadaaaaaa, 9.5 million!
A mere 9.5million ringgit, people. A lot of money, you still think? Let me put that sum in some realistic perspective. It is just about enough for nazri junior to buy his new palace (cost 7m) and decorate it with fittings and furnitures.
Then again I do not discount the wonders that umno could do. Hey afterall, we are a nation of Endless Possibilities. 9.5m may not be a lot but umno could surely churn all sorts of possibilities out of it, I am sure.
///But Universiti Technologi Mara vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar defended local universities, calling those who criticised the decline “short-sighted” and adding that he was not perturbed by the drop in rankings.///
This is spewing stupidity!
///Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Ghauth Jasmon also came out to say that fluctuating rankings were normal.
“No university’s ranking continues to rise. What’s important is that its ups and downs should on average be positive to show progress,” he said. – October 3,///
This is as good as saying nothing. Sorry Prof!
Tan Sri Dr Ghauth Jasmon is just another sad ‘jagoh kampong’, a VC of a Third Division club.
He and other VCs are just pathetic and just can’t do what is necessary to rise up to higher levels. One wonders what these VCs do every day.
And we have a Council or Association of ‘Professors’ some more. What do they ‘profess’?
Ungku Aziz, where are you? Are you weeping yet?
But these latest rankings show that for all the money spent and all of Putrajaya’s efforts, Malaysia’s institutions of higher learning are falling behind.- End of quote
Let’s get one thing straight.
UMNO/BN will never, ever want Malaysians to be bright.
Citizens who are bright, or too bright, will see the logs in the eyes of the rogues.
The money spent is just a big show to signify that they have the education of Malaysians at heart.
But reality is entirely different.
The more ignorant Malaysians are and the more dependent they are of the government, the better.
That way they will be dependent on the government for subsidies which are attached with plenty of strings.
The NUS only recruits the best academic staffs locally and from around the world. Promotion of its academic staffs is solely based on meritocracy. Only the brightest Singaporeans have the chance to study at this prestigious University. Scholarships are also given to bright foreign students including Malaysians to study at this much coveted University. If our Universities can emulate the NUS, there is no reason why our University rankings can’t go up.
If the philosophy on education as practised by this country can be successful then indeed the Minister and ALL our VCs should be given the Nobel Prize in Education. Those so-called egg-heads are not interested in the future of even the Malay students, they just wanted the job especially being called a “Prof” and be judged by their own standard. Have we forgot all the A’s that had been created since Ketuanan comes into effect? Soon enough even the better Malays will feel insulted if you were to think they are local graduates! It had already started!
To use the words of IGP, RM 38.7 billion might as well float to the sea or in the sea…
Might as well drown Malaysian education in the sea too. Utter gibberish. What education?
If Malaysian public universities provides ‘education’, who needs education?
World ranking tak penting lah, not important 1, as confirmed by some VCs
Top mission of our local public univ is 2 produce graduates as smart as our Edu Minister, moooooooooooo