On the way to Subang Airport, I passed a huge billboard advertising that Monash University has been ranked No. 44 in the Times Higher Education World Universities Rankings 2023, which set me thinking about the ranking of Malaysian universities.
In 1960, the University of Malaya was split from what is now the National University of Singapore (NUS) — with its own campus in Kuala Lumpur and which established its own institution in 1962.
The NUS is ranked No. 19 in the Times Higher Education (THE) World Universities Rankings 2023 while the University of Malaya is ranked 351–400th in the world.
Is the fourth and seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, worried about the worsening of academic standards and achievements in Malaysian universities, especially as in the THE Rankings in 2004, University of Malaya was ranked No. 89 (the NUS was ranked No. 18), especially as his Vision 2020 emphasised the pursuit of excellence in all fields?
Mahathir is not worried about the worsening of academic standards and achievement in Malaysian universities, but he is worried that Malaysia may end up as a Singapore in two general elections.
Mahathir is wrong. Malaysia does not want to be another Singapore but better than the island republic, as Malaysia is better positioned to leverage on the best values and virtues of four great civilisations to build a new international civilisation for the world.
Mahathir has announced the failure of Vision 2020 to create a united Bangsa Malaysia and a moral and ethical society, but was he the biggest cause of the failure of Vision 2020, as he had been Prime Minister for half the 30-year timeline of Vision 2020?
It may profit the country to find out the real causes of the failure of Vision 2020.