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Only An Education System That Practices Meritocracy And Improving Academic Standards Can Reverse The Alarming Drop In Foreign Students In Malaysia From 39,577  In 2004 To Only 23,000 In 2005 Press Statement by Lim Guan Eng (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): Only an education system that practices meritocracy and improving academic standards can reverse the alarming drop in foreign students in Malaysia from 39,577 in 2004 to only 23,000 foreign students in 2005. The 42% drop of foreign students in one year caused Higher Education Minister Datuk Dr Shafie Salleh alarm two days ago that Malaysia is losing foreign students to other countries. Singapore despite being a small country has 50,000 foreign students whilst China has 77,715 foreign students.  Malaysia's target was 50,000 foreign students this year with a projected revenue of RM 1.5 billion, but the current figure stands at less than half with only 23,000 foreign students from 150 countries. The 23,000 foreign students include 11,058 from China, 7,503 from Indonesia, 1,409 from India, 1,369 from Thailand and 1,296 from Singapore.   Shafie has called for a meeting among eminent personalities in the public and private education industry to brainstorm and seek immediate solutions to the problem, which could potentially affect Malaysia's position as a regional centre of educational excellence. There is no need for Shafie to call for such a meeting if he does not know the real reasons for the decline in foreign students in Malaysia is caused by the misguided, short-sighted, unfair and unprofessional policies that resulted in poor academic standards.  The National Accreditation Board recently revealed that five out of six courses offered by private colleges nationwide are not accredited. How can foreign students have confidence in the Malaysian education system when courses are not up to mark, especially when the government does not practice meritocracy. Nothing can be more depressing than to watch the declining reputation of Malaysia’s top universities.   In the sixties, Malaysia's sole university, the University of Malaya, was rated as one of the best universities in  the Asia-Pacific but more than  three decades later, it had suffered such a serious erosion of  academic standards and quality  that it was ranked a lowly 47th position out of 77 universities in the Asiaweek's 2000 ranking of Best Universities  in the region, with two other named universities, Universiti Putra Malaysia in 52nd and Universiti Sains Malaysia in 57th position.   Malaysia has currently  17 public universities, 11 private universities, 4 foreign university branch campuses, 3 local private university branch campuses, 2 private university colleges and 516 private colleges/institutes of non-university status - but we do not have a single world-class university when we should have several by our global development status. This is evident by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) released its new global ranking of the world’s best universities.   Only two Malaysian universities were listed, University of Malaya ranked No. 89 and the Universiti Sains Malaysia ranked No. 111. American institutions occupied seven of the top ten places, with two going to Britain and one to Switzerland.    In Asia, Japan’s Tokyo University was evaluated as the best university, ranking 12th, and China’s Beijing University and National University of Singapore formed the leading group, ranking 17th and 18th respectively.  Among other Asian universities that were placed within the top 50 were Kyoto University (29thst), Hong Kong University (39th), Indian Institute of Technology (41st), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (42nd), and Singapore Nanyang Technological University (50th). Tokyo Technological University Japan ranked 51st, Tsinghua University China 62nd and Osaka University Japan 69th.   Malaysian universities at No. 89 and 111, lost out badly to universities from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China. It is therefore not surprising why Malaysia is losing foreign students to Singapore and China. Even the present MAS Chairman Datuk Dr Munir Majid conceded last year that Singapore is ahead of us. He said that the island republic has the advantage of a reputation, long established, of efficiency and educational policy certainty, not to mention a high standard of attainment in education itself.   Datuk Dr Munir even asked Malaysians to accept the fact that we do not have a similar reputation as our standard of education has dropped over the last 30 years. He lamented at the state of our universities, which in the past had a reputable standing among their peers, now are low down in the ranking list.  How can we expect foreign students to have confidence in our education system and colleges when our own Malaysian leaders do not have? And yet the sad failure of 128 STPM students who were rejected from doing medicine despite getting 5As is a sad reflection how meritocracy do not exist and the quota system has sacrificed our best and brightest.  One of our branch leaders in Kuala Lumpur,  Sdr Ricky Liew, is justifiably proud of his brilliant and talented daughter. But she is one sad example of how a top student with 5 As was rejected to do medicine in local universities and offered a fisheries course in Terengganu instead. Is doing a course in fisheries more important to the country than training a doctor? Even though Ricky was then an active MCA branch leader, his daughter became another sacrificial victim of the BN educational policy. Through DAP Seputih MP Teresa Kok and his own efforts in getting public contributions, he managed to send his daughter to study medicine in Shanghai.  Foreign students just will not come to a country that does not believe in meritocracy or maintaining academic standards and are willing sacrifice top students for political considerations. Unless meritocracy and excellence is the core of our education system, Malaysia’s foreign student population may go down even further from the present 25,000/-. (27/1/2005) * Lim Guan Eng, DAP Secretary-General