World Top 400 University listing - None from Malaysia

The TIMES Higher Education World University Ranking 2012-2013, powered by Thomson Reuters are the only global University performance table to judge world class universities across all of their core mission – teaching, research, knowledge, transfer and international out look. The top universities ranking employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparison available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.

It is very surprising that Malaysian universities did not get even near to the top 400 ranking. This has a lot to do with the mentality of our Ministry of Higher Education which encourages “quantity but not quality” which compromised the education standard of our universities. There is a saying that if the Malaysian university were to adopt the USA Harvard University standard of education, all the Malaysian university students would have failed miserably. This shows how badly the standard of our higher education had fallen over the years. Malaysia had scored none in the top list of 400, in spite of having so many universities. The used to be top university in Malaysia, the University of Malaya, could not be found on the list for many years now.

Singapore, our neighbor had done well with two of their universities ranking 22 (National University of Singapore) and ranking 75 is the NamYang University of Technology Singapore. The Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Taiwan universities have very good ranking within the top 100 Universities. What is the reason why our university can’t even squeezed into the 400 ranking mark?

This has a lot to do with our basic, secondary, and higher education system, whereby the method and medium of teaching cannot meet up with the world standard. Our student has the deficiency in both the languages and material of learning that affected them to acquire wider scope of knowledge. This is easily demonstrated in the use of the computer technology, and the teaching of science and mathematic. The stubbornness of the government and their refusal to adopt an international standard in learning had deprived the chance of our student to a wider scope in gaining more knowledge, at the same time reduced their competitive advantage in the international arena.

The Education Minister last year had tried to protect himself by saying that the international rank is not important, but the Malaysian universities are better than the overseas university. So if that is true why so many people including the ministers and dignities sent their own children to student to study overseas. What about those who can’t afford to study overseas, should the government improve our standard of learning and introduce quality to our education system? We don’t want mass production on the expense of quality, and surely this will bring endless problems to our country.

Dr. Hiew King Cheu MP for Kota Kinabalu