University Ranking 2005

There is a concern going on about the drop in ranking for Malaysian universities as indicated in the latest Times Higher Education Supplement 2005. University Malaya dropped drastically from 89 in the 2004 ranking to 169 in the latest 2005 ranking. Latest politician to voice this concern was Lim Kit Siang, and our Prime Minister also had mentioned about this the day before. Interestingly amongst the Asian universities, UM is way down as shown below. Other Malaysian universities could not even get to the top 200.

1. Beijing University (China) - 15
2. Tokyo University (Japan) - 16
3. National University of Singapore - 22
4. Kyoto University (Japan) - 31
5. Hong Kong University - 41
6. Hong Kong University Sci & Technol - 43
7. Nanyang Tech University (Spore) - 48
8. Indian Institutes of Technology - 50
9. Chinese University of Hong Kong - 51
10. Tsing Hua University (China) - 62
11. Indian Institutes of Management - 84
12. China University of Sci & Tech - 93
13. Seoul National University - 93
14. Tokyo Institute of Technology - 99
15. Osaka University - 105
16. National Taiwan University - 114
17. Chulalongkorn University (Thailand) - 121
18. Nagoya University (Japan) - 129
19. Tohoku University (Japan) - 136
20. Korea Adv. Inst of Sci and Tech - 143
21. Hiroshima University (Japan) - 147
22. Nanjing University (China) - 150
23. Hokkaido University (Japan) - 157
24. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) 169
25. Malaya University - 169
26. City University of Hong Kong - 178
27. Korea University - 184
28. Jawaharlal Nehru University - 192
29. Showa University (Japan) - 198

The rankings are based on many criteria and the most glaring one is the Peer Review Score which is 40% of the overall score. UM got 33% out of 100% on that, which means that UM failed in the Peer Review evaluation.

That suggests that UM's academic is falling short of the desired quality that is expected . The lack of quality publication and research would be the case here. Peer review is about other academics evaluation of UM academics in the international scene. So even amongst the Asian academics, let alone the top 10 universities in US and UK, the other Asian academics don't think much of UM's academics.

Quoted from the article:
"The rankings use the results of a survey of 2,375 academics from across the world. These are combined with a series of measures including the number of times that research papers are cited by academics, staff-to-student ratios and number of students and staff from overseas.

This year's analysis includes for the first time a measure based on the views of international employers on which universities they prefer to recruit from."

The last statement above indicated that our graduates are not attractive enough for the global market. That itself is a loaded suggestion / question, which needs deep analysis, such as, what quality is required to enter the global market?

In UM, the usual thing is to wait for the Vice Chancellor to say something, but there should be a "bottom up" reaction to the problem first, feeding the VC with what is believed to be lacking and then the "top bottom" approach can be taken. That is if we want to be proactive about these things.

During our discussions in faculty meetings, we talk a lot. I mean there is so much banter going about on how to be better and so on, and we must compete with NUS and so on, but the action is only in rhetorics. There was no concrete follow through. There was no taking up of ideas to the next level, and there was no concerted effort to address the issues in terms of real targets that the academics can managed. We could dredge up many problems surrounding this issue, if we start looking in detail.
So, when shall we start to really look at this problem?