The country’s premier university, University of Malaya, is guilty of global educational scandal of the first magnitude when it is completely indifferent to its omission in the 2,100 slots for 100 Best Global Universities for 21 subjects but totally paranoid about penalizing student leader Fahmi Zainol and the UM8 for student awakening and activism.

So far, the only person in authority who had deigned to pay notice to the new world university ranking series, the Best Global Universities Ranking 2015 released by the US News and World Report, is the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself – as even the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also Education Minister, has kept silent on the new global university rankings in the past 10 days as he seems to be leading a national campaign to “dumb down” Malaysians on what they should expect of academic excellence and standards in Malaysian universities.

But the Prime Minister was badly advised, as he only congratulated the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) for being placed in the 54th rank in the 100 Best Global Universities for agricultural science, but failed to congratulate the University Sains Malaysia (USM) for being ranked No. 87 in the 100 Best Global Universities for engineering.

Malaysians must be very concerned that in the 2,100 slots for 100 Best Global Universities for 21 subjects, Malaysia’s 21 public universities which have a total of over 200 schools for different disciplines, could only manage to be placed in the 100 Best Global University for two subjects – agricultural science for UPM and engineering for USM.

In failing to get ranked in any one of 100 Best Global Universities for 21 subjects, UM’s lowly listing of No. 423 in the 500 Best Global Universities Rankings 2015 is further diminished – as reflected by the Prime Minister’s congratulations to UPM for being ranked No 58 for the 100 Best Global Universities for agricultural science but not to the UM for the lowly 423rd position for overall university ranking among the 500 Best Global Universities. Read the rest of this entry »