The release today of the Times Higher Education (THE) 400 Top World University Ranking 2011/12, where not a single Malaysian university is included, has punctured the elation and euphoria just two months ago over the QS 200 World University Rankings 2011/12 which saw University of Malaya making to the top 200 Top Universities moving 40 places to 167 compared to 2010.
In the QS World University Rankings 2011/12 released in September, four other Malaysian universities slid down the rankings –University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) ranked 279 this year compared to 263 in 2010; Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) ranked 335 (309 last year); Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) ranked 358 (319 last year) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) at between 401 and 450 (365 last year).
But in the just-released THE 400 Top World University Ranking 2011/12, none of the Malaysian universities made it into the placings.
For the first time, Harvard (with Stanford) is at number two, failing to take the top spot in the list’s eight-year history when California Institute for Technology is named the best university in the world.
The rest of the Top Ten spots are Oxford (4), Princeton (5), Cambridge (6), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (70, Imperial College London (8), Chicago (9) and California (Berkeley) (10).
The top Asian universities in the THE 400 World University Ranking 2011/12 are:
30 – University of Tokyo (Japan)
34 – University of Hong Kong (HK)
40 – National University of Singapore (Singapore)
49 – Peking University (China)
52 – Kyoto University (Japan)
53 – Pohang University of Science and Technology (S.Korea)
62 – Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong)
71 – Tsinghua University (China)
94 – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea)
108 – Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan)
119 – Osaka University (Japan)
120 – Tohoku University (Japan)
124 – Seoul National University (South Korea)
151 – Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
154 – National Taiwan University (Taiwan)
169 – Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
192 – University of Science and Technology of China (China)
193 – City University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
Worth noting is that while not a single Malaysian university made it into the Times Higher Education (THE) 400 Top World Universities Ranking, Thailand through Mahidol University is ranked in the final category between 351-400.