For the eighth year in succession, Malaysia has been left out of the World’s Top 500 Universities ranking in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s “Academic Ranking of World Universities ARWU 2010” released yesterday.
This is the latest proof that the long-talked about higher education reform based on meritocracy and academic excellence is not making much headway.
It underlines the economic and nation-building crisis confronting Malaysia and the warning of the New Economic Model (NEM) that the “human capital situation in Malaysia is reaching a critical stage” because “We are not developing talent and what we have is leaving”.
Singapore has two, Taiwan four, New Zealand five, Hong Kong and Israel seven each, South Korea ten, Australia 17, China 22 and Japan 25 among the 106 Asia-Pacific universities in the lastest 500 World Top Universities ranking, which is dominated by US universities Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford and MIT occupying the top four places followed by Cambridge University in fifth place.
Among the Asia-Pacific leaders in the ranking are: Tokyo (20th), Kyoto (24th), Australian National University (59th), Melbourne (62nd), Jerusalem (72nd), Osaka (75th), Nagoya (79th), Tohoku (84th), Sydney (92nd) and National Taiwan, Singapore, Seoul, Tel Aviv, Queensland, Western Australia, Tokyo Institute of Technology (all seven in the 101-150 category).
When will Malaysia be represented in the Shanghai Jian Tong University’s annual ranking of 500 Top Universities to demonstrate that Malaysia, which had an internationally-recognised premier university in the first decade of Independence half a century ago, has finally redeemed our international academic reputation?
A statement by the Higher Education Minister Datuk Khalid Nordin on the failure of a single university in Malaysia to get recognized by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s annual Top 500 Universities Ranking would be in order as to what Malaysians can expect to look forward in his higher education reform programme.
#1 by k1980 on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 3:07 pm
Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Afghanistan also do not have universities among the World’s Top 500 Universities. So we have good friends such as the taliban for company. And unlike us, those countries do not have the brains to send a space tourist to space.
Also, our number of all-As students in the upsr, pmr and spm will scare the hell out of those countries
#2 by limyc on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 3:10 pm
this is amazing… we are so poor in higher education and we are going to became some jakun country soon! even worst than israel!!! As a university student, I felt so poor and ashamed of my own country and luckily I m not studying in malaysia’s local university….good luck malaysian…MALAYsia.
#3 by Godfather on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 3:33 pm
Aiya, you people betul betul buat susah saja. There is nothing wrong with our universities. In fact, we continue to plant rambutan trees all over our universities so that the undergraduates can have their worldly discussions under these trees, enjoy the fruit, and never have to worry about who is going to claim ownership of the tree.
In fact, we are having discussions with Ibrahim Ali on how we can improve our planting strategies so that we can produce more and more jaguh kampungs. Cintanegara, one of our more illustrious graduates, will assist Ibrahim Ali in this respect.
#4 by Godfather on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 3:51 pm
Shanghai Jiao Tong is nothing more than a Chinese conspiracy. Ask Perkasa. This publication only favours chopstick nations, which explains why China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore all rank very highly. This is typical Chinese hegemony to rule the world by inducing brain drain from countries like ours to the chopstick nations.
#5 by yhsiew on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 4:15 pm
This is what you get when NEP replaces meritocracy.
#6 by sheriff singh on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 4:24 pm
SJTU Ranking is biased towards research outputs. Are Malaysia’s Research Intensive Universities capable of producing world class, cutting edge research?
Many of our local educators and politicians very quickly dismiss international rankings giving all sorts of lame excuses.
However, these rankings are viewed very seriously by the education authorities and ministers of many developed countries.
European Education Ministers on the other hand, are really concerned about their universities’ rankings and are actively looking into ways and means to improve their universities’ rankings.
Several of them have even gone to SJTU to meet up with the officials who are responsible for producing the rankings. See this:
http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/news/news/432088/Shanghai_rankings_rattle_European_universities.html
If the European Education Ministers can be rattled, will our own Education Ministers be equally rattled or will they continue to trivialise and ignore the issue again as is usual of them?
Our universities must stop being factories producing graduates in large numbers. Getting a place in a university is now so easy that anyone can get a degree these days.
There is really no competition any more as almost everyone can get a place somewhere. And today’s news say we are shopping for students in the Middle East and in Indonesia.
Our postgraduate courses are mostly TAUGHT courses with little research content. How to go up in international rankings?
#7 by dagen on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 5:01 pm
Let me answer this one on behalf of cintanegara and gang.
“Dear Kit,
The ranking by Jiao Tong U is of no significance to us because the University itself is not recognised by our umno gobermen. The non-recognition can only mean that the standard and quality of the university is not up to our very high standards and quality.
Thank you.”
Pls direct all replies to cintanegara and gang
#8 by cseng on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 5:49 pm
You want our university to advance into the list, you must allow the student to think, can umno live with that simple request, liberalization? Just allow them to think and debate issues freely and openly.
Do the ‘great minds’ still available in our university? Is our university only a place to get a paper qualification to ‘cari makan’? or worse, it act as an employment dam to hold up employment for the unemployed graduates?
#9 by cseng on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 5:55 pm
Bas-tardisation of education policies!
#10 by pulau_sibu on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 6:10 pm
hahaha, we have our 1Malaysia ranking system. Don’t worry about other ranking systems
#11 by boh-liao on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 6:44 pm
When will Malaysia be represented in the Shanghai Jian Tong University’s annual ranking of 500 Top Universities – ha, ha, ha, ban ban tan loh
Anyway, Y worry, this is a foreigners’ plot against 1M’sia
They never highlighted d great achievements of our universities, like d record breaking “Longest Non-Stop Street Soccer Challenge” of MSU
Meanwhile, enjoy d wayang in our courts
#12 by boh-liao on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 6:48 pm
Enjoy http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp
#13 by kpt99 on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 6:53 pm
So many unemployed graduates are called up for retrain,to learn english,kpli,and etc,what do they do in unis ?. Most of these grads ended up in temporary teachings especially the lelong courses
#14 by pulau_sibu on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 7:02 pm
We have a lot of degree students to work as maids. Do you need any?
How can they underestimated our ranking where we have the best SPM students full of 13As. There are so many such that we don’t have adequate scholarships to give out to them. We must be the record holders
#15 by Bigjoe on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 7:30 pm
OMG! These medieval minds don’t get it that compulsory patriotism is a violation of individual right to question authority AND if you order business or individual to spend money for patriotism – its a patriotism tax – there is no provision in our law AND against our constitution for patriotism tax.
#16 by HARGA diri on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 8:10 pm
Star newspaper reported about a certain local university in Selangor will have an intake of 200 Indonesian students. Wah ! So great ! Malaysia’s education system is very students’ friendly. If one cannot pass this system, one will never pass other systems. It goes to show how friendly is the government with the students.
#17 by LG on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 9:22 pm
During my years in Malaya University during the late sixties, our Engineering faculty was ranked one of the top 10 in the world, comparable to Engineering Faculty in MIT, USA. We were so proud of our university. Today many years later, our universities though many even MU (or UM) have deteriorated very badly and still deteriorating and becoming nought in sight of many. This is one of the by-products of NEP.
#18 by ENDANGERED HORNBILL on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 10:52 pm
Muhyiddin, as far as I know, was never a scholar and has neither aptitude nor predilection for anything academic.
Wonder why he is sitting on a cash cow Ministry of Education?
This Ministry must be run by a Minister who is passionate about education and educational standards without fear and favour.
Malaysia has lost almost 40 years in good education. Now watch Malaysia go down the same drain pipe with the likes of Cambodia et. al. Whilst developing countries are developing, Muhyiddin’s ministry has nothing to its credit but retrogression.
Don’t agree? Mooooo….
#19 by passerby on Monday, 16 August 2010 - 11:26 pm
Simple. MARA can start our own ranking system and all Malaysian universities will be ranked at the very top! We can also rank all the brainless top scholars too.
#20 by johnnypok on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 1:57 am
It will take at least 5 x 8 = 40 years of serious effort to repair the damage, provided of course NEP must be abolished first, otherwise, it will surely reach the bottom of the scale by 2020
#21 by dagen on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 8:23 am
Ibrahim bin perkasa u sudah pegi mana? Naik kapalterbang saat ini juga. Ya sama sama gang ke shanghai buat protest sebab jiao tong U tu tak respect ketuanan umno serta ketuanan umnoputra. Ranking tu merupakan cabaran terhadap hak umnoputra. Jangan lupa bawa cintanegara bersama sama ya. Dia tu pakar Prinsip prinsip pokok rambutan.
#22 by k1980 on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 8:24 am
According to Bolehland’s World’s Top 500 Most Intelligent and Handsome People Ranking 2010, No. 1 is Jib! No. 499 is Obama
#23 by dagen on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 8:33 am
Errr excuse me k1980, that no 1 spot. Ya. That spot in the chart. Am afraid it is reserved for perempuan utama, fat mama ros. If she should claim the no.2 spot then by logic, the no.1 must be left vacant.
Paham tak?
#24 by Taxidriver on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 10:12 am
Mahathir once said our graduates should not be choosey when it comes to looking for jobs. He said if jobs were not available, there are plenty of other opportunities to earn good money, like selling pisang goreng. OMG! the PM of Malaysia telling our university graduates to sell PISANG GORENG!!!!!!!????????
#25 by boh-liao on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 12:18 pm
Nothing wrong, selling pisang goreng is big business
If no like sell pisang goreng, sell MMK’s bread n cakes (get franchise 4 ‘The Loaf’ fr him lah)
#26 by tsn on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 1:40 pm
LG: Are you sure? Once upon the time, MU engineering was at the same pedestal with MIT. A bit self-angkat.
#27 by dagen on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 6:33 pm
Once upon a time MU’s MBBS grads could pass UK’s Royal College of Physicians’ exams easily. So yeah I would not be surprised by LG’s statement. Remember. MU and SU were related in those days. SU was for medicine and MU was for engineering. That was why dr mamak had to go to SU to learn his MBBS. How pathetic. How far and how much umno gobermen has cause the country to slide and deteriorate. From economy to education, from standard of english to football.
The saving factor for them is we now have angkasawan and mat bodoh in large number.
GE 13 is coming soon. I reserve the word rempit for umnoputras. They are “Tuan Rempit McBullys” and the rest of us are “Hamba de Bullys”. Mat rempits in my book will become mat bodohs for that really is what they are!
#28 by tunglang on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 7:04 pm
If Malaysia sincerely dreams, wants, yearns or aspires to be in the world’s top 500 ranking, one simple non-arguable remedy to our nose-diving local education system is:
Revert back to ENGLISH medium with genuine meritocracy, high standard ( not the easy to get 10As type ) education and massive investment in teachers/lecturers, research facilities, libraries, IT and quality educational institutions of higher learning open to all races.
Can or cannot? ( or keep on dreaming )
#29 by tunglang on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 7:07 pm
Also, sell the nose-diving subs and Petronas Twin Towers and convert to precious cash for our education needs.
Tak Boleh or Tak Boleh?
#30 by tunglang on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 7:08 pm
#31 by tunglang on Tuesday, 17 August 2010 - 7:26 pm
‘Space Top-Spinning Malaysia’.
What is the return on investment from the RM100 million spent on ‘space odyssey’ that our so-called astronaut brought to our local universites, research materials of what value?
Can’t we produce anything of substantial value to get a shot at the World’s Top 500 Universities Ranking?
#32 by raven77 on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 12:18 am
Something that has always puzzled me is why our IPTAs dont recognise A levels as an entry point for their Universities but instead keep hiding behind their self cooked Matrikulasi or Asasi programs……one of the root causes of their low standards…
Malaysia Universities are goners. Fit for kampong consumption. We may already have dipped beneath Indon standards, and there will soon be Indon agents here looking for Malaysian graduates to work as maids and escorts for rich Indons….
Who indeed would have guessed that this would be Malaysia’s fate 53 years ago.
#33 by k1980 on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 8:21 am
Why not set up Universiti Angkasawan Malaysia with the infamous teh-tarik space tourist as its Vice-Chancellor and Ibrahim Perkasa as its dean? It will produce world-class space tourists who will “explore” the space frontiers with govt sponsored seats in foreign spacecraft.
RM1.00 collected as space tax from each rakyat will come to RM28 million, enough for a seat in a Russian spacecraft.
#34 by kpt99 on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 8:30 am
It doesn’t matter whether they are rated top 500 or not cos they graded most local unis as uni cermalang and terbilang.pastene 10
#35 by boh-liao on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 10:26 am
Our local public univs r not in d World’s Top 500 Universities ranking
Most of their graduates r unemployable, 1 reason being d poor command of English of their graduates
Looks like d unemployable graduates also not qualified 2 b involved in d lucrative flesh trade as providers
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/8/18/nation/6875850&sec=nation
#36 by TheWrathOfGrapes on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 10:47 am
Let me preempt him and say it for cinta-my-ass:
What would DAP’s reaction be if Singapore’s universities are omitted from World’s Top 500 Universities Ranking?
First, both scenarios are highly unlikely. And even if they occur, I am sure DAP will also take the offender to task.
#37 by sk88 on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 - 7:00 pm
I came across this transcribed snapshot showing a teacher in action in a Malaysian school which was published in a book. Is it a wonder why our universities can’t make the ranks.
“Today I want to continue err, the lesson, ok? Open you textbook, page forty-three, ok? Open your textbook page one hundred and forty-two, er three. Are you ready? Are you ready? One hundred and forty three, ok? How to divide unit of land,ok? divide unit of land? same,same with another past lesson yang kita pernah belajar yang dulu, dulu that we had learned the last time. Cuma only the difference is unit, ok? Err the last lesson divide for what unit, for time kan? right? ok, now continue with land, ok?….I don’t want to show, I don’t want to show how to divide it because the step how to divide,,”