The Malaysian education took another bruising with the release of the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2014, which lists the top 100 varsities in Asia … and not one Malaysian university made the list.
The THE Asia University Rankings judge universities on their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. It is conducted in an identical manner to Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings.
The Top 10 were taken up by varsities from five countries, with the University of Tokyo securing first place with 76.4 points. The National University of Singapore (NUS) trails closely behind wit 72.4, while the University of Hong Kong, Seoul National University (South Korea), and Peking University (China) took third, fourth and fifth places respectively. Each country except Singapore has at least two universities ranking in the Top 10, with South Korea edging in three varsities.
Last year, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was the best-performing (and only) Malaysian university on the list, making it to 87th place.
Malaysian universities were beaten in the rankings not only by the Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and China, but also by neighbouring Thailand, which has two universities in the Top 100. India has 10 of its universities making the list, and the Middle East was well represented by unversities from Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
When contacted by The Malay Mail Online‘‘s Benedict Ng, a source from UKM said the university failed to get into this year’s rankings because there were no funds for scholarly research.
“We have to generate our own income because Malaysia is usually unsuccessful in getting grants from local and foreign investors,” he said.
He said there was a prejudice against local scholars, whereby the government and the public would rather entrust research to foreigners.
“We are not trusted by our own people when we actually have local world-class scholars and talent who can do a better job, given their homegrown expertise,” he said.
He cited as an example the recent revamp of the National Education Blueprint, credited to the lead scholar, a contracted foreigner, even all the data and facts had been culled from the research of local scholars.
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) mass communications lecturer Assoc Prof Mohamad Md Yusof also told The Malay Mail Online that Malaysia lacked a critical mass of scholars.
“Many of our scholars have gone to Ivy League universities and such around the world. They would rather conduct research abroad than here,” he said.
“This is because of our unconvincing corporate culture. The accredited do not receive their just respect and funds to conduct research.”
Mohamad said local scholars needed to be appreciated instead of taken for granted.
He said this would encourage scholars to return and help improve the country through their respective fields of expertise.
