Malaysia's
Varsity crisis
Earlier ranking before the plunge probably due to mistaking
Malaysian Chinese and Indian students as foreigners. JeffOoi's
Screenshots (excerpts).
Nov 13, 2005
(An
explanation is found) in a blog (www.educationmalaysia.blogspot.com)
run by Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming, two former Asean Scholars
who care deeply about education issues in this country.
Together,
they seem to have solved the mystery of UM's drastic plunge
(89th to 169th). They recently alerted me to their findings
and it makes a lot of sense to me.
Vice
Chancellor Prof Dr Hashim Yaacob has said that while he
did not dispute the methodology used for the survey, he
did not believe all the criteria used were of importance
to UM.
Two
examples he gave are the scores given to the percentage
of international students and faculty members at the university.
How
ironic that he should say that, for it is precisely UM's
favourable scores in these two areas that allowed it to
place in the top 100 last year.
Last
year, UM achieved an overall score of 166.4, out of which
68 came from its international student score. That means
nearly 41% of UM's total score was due to its "supposed"
high percentage of international students.
UM scored
so high in these areas that there were only five other universities
that did better.
They
were the London School of Economics (100), Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology (80), Curtin University of Technology
(79), Universiti Sains Malaysia (78) and School of Oriental
and African Studies, London (77).
But
does UM (or USM for that matter) actually have that many
international students?
To give
you a sense of comparison, UM actually outperformed Monash
University for international student intake.
We're
talking about a university where some 30% of the student
population comes from overseas. For UM to beat Monash, more
than 30% of UM 's student population should be foreigners.
I'm
not a gambling man but if I were, I 'd bet good money that
the number of foreign students in UM does not even come
close to that.
So,
how did UM score so highly in this area last year?
Bloggers
Pua and Ong suggest that the score-keepers at THES probably
mistook Malaysian Chinese and Indian students for foreigners.
Posted by jeffooi
I do
agree with Oon Yeoh on the misclassification of Malaysian
Indians & Chinese as foreigners. I could not believe
that the make up of student body and the academic staff
were significantly changed in one year period.
This
THES ranking issue is being politicised to the max. Both
the politicians and the academicians should stop arguing
about the ranking but instead work harder to improve the
quality of the graduates, which I think is more important
to the country and employers.
Comments
Seriously,
I have been to several top universities in US for visitation,
never in my life I saw any University erect any signboard
to display what is their current ranking.
gckiat
I was
flabbergasted when I saw those billboard pictures. I honestly
cannot believe that the UM Vice Chancellor has stooped so
low to glorify UM's miserable rankings... He is making UM
a laughing stock...no, not UM but Malaysia a laughing stock.
He must go!
sorespot
Habis-lah! I thought the billboard was a joke. Seriously,
tak tahu malu.... Maybe in 5 years time we will see "Tahniah..we
are a top500 university" I really really feel bad for
the current students.
fruitopia
It is
utterly embarassing to see our people have a strange way
of celebrating success. The norm would be, people celebrate
success because there is an improvement from double digit
to single digit.
In our case, we do it (and joyfully at that) from double
digit to triple digit. What kind of meritocracy are we talking
about???
We have no choice but to face it that our universities will
continue to slide into oblivion unless:
1. They open the doors to bright students
2. They source and recruit the best lecturers be they local
or foreign.
3. They allow English to be reinstated as the language of
instruction.
After 30 years, more and more graduates are still getting
unemployed and that alone speaks volume of the credibility
of our educational system which is going to the dogs.
I should know because I have been involved in interviewing
such graduates and quite frankly and sadly, they just simply
don't measure up.
It would therefore be a good idea too (which may sound ridiculous)
that before the students graduate, they must also be made
to attend interview workshops conducted by HR practitioners.
They must also be involved in role-plays on how to carry
themselves during an interview.
William D
Yup...highly
embarrassing to look at those billboard. It smacks of Third
World mentality of glorifying form over substance.
It is indeed very sad to look at how mediocrity is celebrated
here in Bolehland. You don't see MIT or Harvard or Yale
glorifying their ranking/achievements through billboards
do you?
Be realistic and find out ways to improve the ranking. I'm
not surprised if by next year the billboard will have to
change to Top 1000...
IMHO, Bring back Royal Profesor Ungku Aziz or someone of
his caliber to lead UM. Only then will the rot be halted.
queequeg
I think
the shame is not on UM's raking nosediving from 89th to
169th position. The shame is more on the failure of UM to
realise the reason behind the fall. As an intellectual,
Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hashim Yaacob failed miserably in
his analysis. He tried to defend UM by arguing that its
ranking has actually improved in three out of five categories:
Arts and Humanities (45), Biomedicine (82) and Social Science
(83).
It took laymen to realise that the decline was due to Malaysian
Chinese and Indian students was mistakenly classified as
international students. This means that UM true position
was not 89 last year. Hence, its overall position could
have improved to 169th from somewhere out of 200th!
pointer
The last two billboards looked like they were Photoshopped
with just the rankings pasted on the original billboards.
Are they for real? If so, talk about a rush cut-and-paste
advertising job.
It's highly unusual for a Uni to blow its own trumpet by
using such crass means of self-promotion. A self-wank for
mediocrity, lol.
Fat Cat Lim
Nov 13, 2005
