By Boo Su-Lyn
The Malaysian Insider
May 23, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, May 23 — Six out of seven Malaysian universities improved their ranking on the QS Asian University Rankings this year, with Universiti Malaya (UM) climbing three spots to 39th.
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) also jumped 20 slots to 57th out of 200 Asian universities.
No Malaysian university entered the top 10 ranks while the National University of Singapore (NUS) retained its third place.
QS also said in a statement the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) knocked the University of Hong Kong down to the second spot.
The global higher education information specialist noted that Malaysia had seven universities in the top 200 Asian universities compared to Thailand’s nine and Indonesia’s eight.
Japan was the best-represented nation with five universities in the top 10 ranks and 57 in the top 200.
In contrast, China had 40, South Korea 35, Taiwan 16, India 11, and Hong Kong had seven universities in the top 200 Asian institutions.
The QS Asian University Rankings last year showed that the top Malaysian university was UM at the 42nd spot while Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was the second best university here at 58th.
The ranking of public institutions in Malaysia has dived throughout the past years to the point of dropping out of the top 200 universities in the QS World University Rankings last year.
QS noted that the “dynamism” of the Asian region was bolstered by the fact that one out of five universities in the top 50 universities was less than 50 years old.
The rankings were based on the following factors: academic peer review (30 per cent), recruiter review (10 per cent), student/ faculty ratio (20 per cent), papers per faculty (15 per cent), citations per paper (15 per cent), and 2.5 per cent each for international faculty review, international student review, and inbound and outbound student exchanges.
UM vice-chancellor Dr Ghauth Jasmon had reportedly urged Malaysia’s oldest university last year to take world rankings seriously if it wanted to remain globally competitive.
#1 by rahmanwang on Monday, 23 May 2011 - 9:31 am
Oh I thought Thailand University is not as highly ranked compared to Malaysia.
Best of Thailand is 34 and Malaysia best ranked is 39.Remember at out court nobody heard of the Thai pathologist credentials!
There you go. Mahidol University.
#2 by waterfrontcoolie on Monday, 23 May 2011 - 10:05 am
The Thais Universities were unable to compete in the past because of language handicap to do re as Chinasearch in a wider field. Today the reverse has happened to us, we are slowly losing that edge and they have improved by more than a few notch. In that respect, if Myanmar were to be ‘accepted’ then, they would quickly outjump us. Vietnam has the same handicap and they are pursuing the language barrier albeit not as vigorous as China who has topped their Asian competitors in the Far East.
Here we are still playing with sentiment of tribal pride and emotion because of supposedly non-economic reasons, although everyone else knows, it is a money factor. With open information through English, the poor rural folks would not buy those slogans that readily. That is the real issue.
#3 by sheriff singh on Monday, 23 May 2011 - 11:26 am
Don’t just look at the Malaysian Universities’ rankings. Look at their scores as well. They all have very low scores, very far, far away from the elites.
Another failure is that many of our numerous public universities, fully funded by the government, are no where to be seen.
Our many, many private Universities and University Colleges are no where to be seen as well. No quality. Another big failure of our government.
#4 by sheriff singh on Monday, 23 May 2011 - 1:51 pm
The PM’s and the FLOM’s trip to the US was to attend their daughter’s graduation. All other events were organised as a smokescreen for their real intention, to justify their expenses.
Why did his daughter study for her first degree in the US? Malaysian universities not good enough?
#5 by boh-liao on Monday, 23 May 2011 - 5:52 pm
Enjoy
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2011