Malaysia Boleh? Not quite.... (Part 2)

Why UM's ranking dropped so drastically
Oon Yeoh

During Universiti Malaya 's centennial celebrations in July, its Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hashim Yaacob proudly celebrated the fact that UM was ranked 89th in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES).

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who was at the celebrations, optimistically challenged UM to get ranked among the top 50 by 2020.

When this year 's rankings came out, far from improving its standing, UM had dropped some 80 points to 169. What happened?

That 's exactly what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wanted to know when he asked UM to find out why its ranking had dropped so drastically.

Prof Hashim has tried to put a positive spin on this by saying that UM has, in fact, placed in the top 100 in three out of five categories: Arts and Humanities (45), Biomedicine (82) and Social Science (83).

He has not, however, been able to explain the sudden drop in the overall ranking.

I somehow doubt that Prof Hashim reads blogs but there 's one that I 'd like to point him to (www.educationmalaysia.blogspot.com) which is run by Tony Pua and Ong Kian Ming, two former Asean Scholars who care deeply about education issues in this country.

Together, they seem to have solved the mystery of UM 's drastic plunge. They recently alerted me to their findings and it makes a lot of sense to me. Read on and see if it makes sense to you too.

Prof Hashim has said that while he did not dispute the methodology used for the survey, he did not believe all the criteria used were of importance to UM.

Two examples he gave are the scores given to the percentage of international students and faculty members at the univer- sity.

How ironic that he should say that, for it is precisely UM 's favourable scores in these two areas that allowed it to be placed in the top 100 last year.

Last year, UM achieved an overall score of 166.4, out of which 68 came from its international student score. That means nearly 41% of UM 's total score was due to its "supposed " high percentage of international students. UM scored so high in these areas that there were only five other universities that did better.

They were the London School of Economics (100), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (80), Curtin University of Technology (79), Universiti Sains Malaysia (78) and School of Oriental and African Studies, London (77).Ê

But does UM (or USM for that matter) actually have that many international students?

To give you a sense of comparison, UM actually outperformed Monash University for international student intake.

We 're talking about a university where some 30% of the student population comes from overseas. For UM to beat Monash, more than 30% of UM 's student population should be foreigners.

I 'm not a gambling man but if I were, I 'd bet good money that the number of foreign students in UM does not even come close to that.

So, how did UM score so highly in this area last year?

Bloggers Pua and Ong suggest that the score-keepers at THES probably mistook Malaysian Chinese and Indian students for foreigners.

This is highly plausible. In fact, likely. After all, non-bumis do make up just slightly more than 30% of the student population in local universities.

Now, let 's fast forward to this year. UM 's international student score suddenly plummets to a lowly 7 (a whopping 61-point drop).

It would seem somebody has alerted the statisticians at THES that there are such people as Chinese and Indian Malaysians.

Not convinced? Let 's look at more circumstantial evidence.

Last year, UM got an impressive 29 points for its internatio- nal faculty score.

That 's pretty close to the National University of Singapore (NUS), which got 35 points. NUS, of course, is well-known for recruiting lecturers from around the world. UM, unfortunately, is not. Yet their scores were so close in this area.

Now, let 's fast forward to this year. UM 's international faculty score suddenly plummets to a mere 12 points.

Could it be that the statisticians at THES also realised that Chinese and Indian lecturers at UM are not foreigners but Malaysians, and avoided the mistake they made last year?

The ironic twist in all this is that despite its drop in rankings, UM has, in a sense, done better this year.

If the statisticians at THES had not made the mistake of classifying non-bumi students and faculty members as foreigners, UM would not have even made it to the Top 200 last year.

Then, instead of lamenting the fact that our best university had dropped 80 points, we would be celebrating the fact that it had climbed up to 169!

Prof Hashim, perhaps its time to put down those academic books and start reading some blogs. Perhaps then you can give Pak Lah a rational explanation for the sudden plunge in UM 's rankings.