Universiti Melaya
A shocking global slide
From 89 to 169 in one year nosedive casts gloom on Malaysia's future competitiveness. Screenshots.
Oct 31, 2005

The nation is shocked, finds the nosedive unbelievable with many Malaysians are worried about the state of the country's universities.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahman Badawi, a former UM graduate, has said he is very sad to hear of it. He wants action to halt the decline.

Deputy Higher Education Minister Fu Ah Kiow thinks the magnitude of the fall is "inconceivable". "There is obviously some inconsistency in the ranking criteria."

Universiti Melaya, the country's premier university, which was ranked 89th in 2004 has fallen to 169th position this year, according to The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), sharing the placing with Shanghai Jiaotong University and Novosibirsk State University, Russia.

In his "Screenshots", blogger Jeff Ooi writes:

The rankings use the results of a survey of 2,375 academics from across the world.

These are combined with a series of measures including the number of times that research papers are cited by academics, staff-to-student ratios and number of students and staff from overseas.

This year's analysis includes for the first time a measure based on the views of international employers on which universities they prefer to recruit from.

So, two key questions on quality input and output: Does UM have a strong record in academic research papers that are frequently cited their peers? How do international employers evaluate our graduates?

THES 2005's top 200 universities are in 31 countries, with the US being the proud home to 54 of them - with seven in the top 10, and Britain is home to 24, ahead of Australia in third place with 17.

Overall, Harvard University retained its place as the top institution in the world.

Another US university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, moved up a notch to number two while top British universities Cambridge and Oxford ranked third and fourth place, respectively. Stanford University is number 5.

Australia's 'best' university, Melbourne University, is ranked 19th.

Comments in Screenshots (Excerpts)

"It is interesting to note that China, Singapore (just few minutes away) and India made it to top 50.
It is also interesting to note how our Government or even general public treat China Chinese and India Indians when they come here to work on professional jobs.
Last I heard, India Indians are refusing to come to Malaysia to assist with IT, because they were treated like crap when they were here few years ago.
Well, hopefully we will come into a realisation that our arrogance in having the tallest building in the world or the biggest ketupat is not going to get us anywhere.
I hope it is not too late for Malaysia. If education in a country flops, it is a matter of time that the country will follow suit.
It is especially embarrassing when our closest neighbour is way far in advance than us.
Even Thailand scored better than UM. If that is not a sign that something is wrong, I am not sure what other signs we are waiting for.
Vision 2020 - Sad to say, the next generation going to suffer like we have never imagined.
Posted by luseton

If this trend continues, next year we will be out of the 200 list.
Then no need to worry lah, just be happy! After all the sun still shines and we have enough rain.
Posted by hjangus

It's really sad when we trumpet our achievements and we compare against weaker countries.
Malaysia was proud that it scored 89th last year, but did it even mention that the two Singapore Universities were in the top 50 with NUS being 18th?
We truly have to compare with Singapore, especially NUS since UM and NUS share the same origins, from the KE7 College and Raffles College. In fact, NUS has gone through rougher times, being disbanded once as well.
I'm currently studying in NUS and I do wish to return home one day. It is really sad to see the amount of effort that the Singapore government is putting into attracting foreign talent and into promoting education while the Malaysian government still believes in protectionist policies...
I believe the people at the top knows that it is hurting the country but I guess during election it is the votes that counts. We really need to stop the rot.
UM was once top in the world. Where is it now? Even USM has dropped out of the top 200 ranking... NUS drops to 22 while NTU goes up two notches to 48
Posted by coolcatx

This is what that will be likely to happen in the next few days...denials denials...denials.. From everybody ie Vice Chancellor, Higher Education Minister. etc. And maybe the kris-wielding joker will scream at THES and then soon everything is forgotten.
Next year and the next year and the next, another ranking will put us lower and lower on the rankings and we will have the same people huffing and puffing THES again.
Then one day will be so low down on the ladder and maybe not ranked at all, our education officials will have no need to respond at all.
What can you get when you get politician to do an educationist job? What can you get when you start sacking your best lecturers?
Posted by art chan

When 80% of the effort is wasted on university politics, what can you expect?
Posted by moo_t

Maybe sooner there will be banners all around the campus celebrating UM as one of the top 200 universities in the world!!!
I'm just very curious of how a university is managed. Is age a factor in academics? I thought when a teacher gets older he will be wiser and knowledgeable. But hey no, not in Malaysia, you are required to retired once your age is reaching the retirement age, no matter how good you are.
I wonder why the PM always lauds employment of foreign scientists whenever he goes for meetings related to biotech stuffs.
What's the point of all that talks? When you have many good professors who are forced to retire once they reach their retirement age and they are all still healthy! God Bless Malaysia!!!
Posted by kelcy

My colleagues in Singapore are taking a dig at me for this. Need I say more?
Just look at where NUS is. They already knew a few days back that their ranking had dropped slightly (18 to 22) and they are already doing all they can to improve it. In fact, they are aiming to be in the Top 10 soon.
What about UM? Happy at being 89th? And now 169th? Vision 2020? It just reflects the sad reality back home, the same sorry state of affairs year in, year out.
Why do you think I am working here?
Posted by dr.strangelove

Actually the further down the list you go the less difference there is in the scores; THES said last year that "Where scores are close, as they are lower down the table, there is no suggestion that one university is definitively better than another." (O'Leary, "Top performers on the global stage take a bow". THES, Nov. 2004).
My guess is that the new ranking is mostly due to the inclusion of the new criterium relating to employers (it got zero).
As for citations, it scores 1 this year, which is an improvement on zero last year.
Sadly, I think it does reflect on biased recruitment policies in the UM, where it is not academic excellence that determines a person's position.
Posted by julthefool

Not only in university rankings do the Singaporeans thrash us. Just look at SIA and MAS.
The interesting thing is that Singapore has managed to attract many talented Malaysians over and these guys have helped to show up the shortcomings of the Malaysian system.
But Malaysia has definitely more style. As for substance, they really don't worry too much about that.
The gas reserves will last for at least another 50 years.
Posted by hjangus

I remember few months ago, Singapore announced their advancement in Biotech and immediately Malaysia created a "team" and send them to the US for a conference.
The leader of our Malaysian Biotech team is an individual who has not published any papers and in fact when he was asked "what they are planning to accomplish in the conference", he replied "We are going to show the US that we are also interested in Biotech field".
What a lame purpose. US could care less about Malaysia. But then again, this has been the mentality of Malaysian government for a long time - PUT A SHOW.
They are more interested in showing others, not realising that they don't have anything to show. Let's build the tallest building and the world will see that we are advanced, let's build the MSC and the world will see that we are big on IT although there are still many empty rooms and no human resources.
Yet they have the brains to tell minority groups "If you don't like it here, get out of the country".
I do not regret leaving Malaysia but I am worried for my relatives and their kids. I keep telling them, study as hard as possible, put more focus on Math and Science and less on Bahasa Malayu, get into foreign university and never turn back.
Let our stupid politicians get what they want - A Bumi country - and I would like to see what happens next. With the way things are, even Indonesians don't want to come to Malaysia to work.
Posted by luseton

Something which we seem to have lost over the years, mostly from politicising higher education to serve the half-baked policies of ultimately self-serving civil servants.
If ever there needs to be an oasis of excellence in this country to show Malaysia still has some remnant of pragmatic sanity in her, it must be in our local universities.
The rot must stop, the slide reversed, the measures more draconian.
Only 17% passed the SPM first marked last year, it was lamented. That's why so many did well when they finally announced; they tweaked the passing rates big time. Enrolments in national STPM classes are down.
Education has a cascading, knock-on effect that takes about a decade before full impact. Mistakes made years back ricochet only too much later for any positive unscrambling.
Posted by Neil

Ooh...I am going back to Singapore to work after I graduate. No point sticking around here.
Many of my friends are working in factories quite happily and most of them have become senior techs due to the fact they can speak English, and their employers encourage them to study at ITE on their days off with the company providing them the necessary incentives for them to study and upgrade themselves.
Majority of them have houses and cars and a few of them are even happily married. And these guys had actually (failed) their SPM because of Bahasa Melayu.
The rest of the subjects came in either distinctions or credit. Why bother with UTM, UiTM, UM and all the Ms in Malaysia? Study for bloody 4-5 years in our local Universities and most of them can't even communicate properly in English. Wonder whose fault is it anyway? hmmm....
kachang inc

Whose fault is it? Every year, I line up with a lot of concerned parents to review the performance of their children with their teachers - you know, REPORT CARD day.
From about six years ago, to my utmost shock and horror, the teachers themselves could hardly string together a complete sentence in English and this got progressively worse with every year.
It was instant private tuition time, more parental supervision, and the seizing of each and every opportunity to complement their education through challenging them to look beyond their syllabus (which incidentally would have reduced them to the level of the proverbial frog at the bottom of the well.)
It is very clear to me who is at fault. My question is WHY???
Posted by Michael Lee

If our universities continue to slide into oblivion, it is apparent that they no longer have the class of being a university anymore. Would they not be then classified as college? High school rather than university?
Let's face it - our university system is already doomed and everybody knows that except our UMNO politicians who still live in world of make believe that we are of world-class material.
Simply put, for six months I tried to recruit University graduates for the post of sales executive.
During the interview, to my horror, their communication skill was so bad that I have no choice but to reject them. They could not even string a sentence together and the English spoken and was of primary school standard.
If they could not articulate themselves, then there was simply no way they could handle a job like sales.
Posted by William D

In Malaysia, it seems the Universities are to generate supporters for the government. But if you are opposition material, all kinds of problems abound.
They do not encourage you to think at all and even the lecturers have to sign the famous akujanji like some communist ideology.
Now if the lecturers are cowed, how do you expect the students to think?
Posted by hjangus
Oct 31, 2005