KUALA LUMPUR: Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Kebangsan Malaysia (UKM) have defended themselves for not taking part in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2014-2015, citing the use of indicators that were not suitable for Malaysian universities younger than their Western counterparts.

UM said it will be ready to participate in the rankings by 2018, while UKM said it was better for it to participate in rankings that are more “suited to its direction”.

UM vice-chancellor Professor Datuk Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin cited two reasons why the university did not participate in the THE rankings, which Malaysian universities have not been featured in since 2011.

“The first is because UM is still building up its publications and citations in the Web of Science database,” Mohd Amin said in a statement to The Malaysian Insider. “UM’s policy on this began only in 2008. It is now only beginning to bear fruit but is not yet sufficiently mature to make an impact.”

The second reason, he said, was the amount of funding the university received, which was not enough to compete with other established universities around the world.

“UM is not yet in a strong enough financial position to compete with other richer, older and better-ranked universities. UM is making plans to be more financially independent but these financial plans are long term in nature.”

THE, in releasing the rankings earlier yesterday, said it was disappointed that Malaysia’s most prominent universities — UM and UKM — had not submitted any data for the annual rankings, saying they were missing out on the opportunity to be assessed against other universities in the world.

“This is very disappointing as they are essentially holding Malaysia back from being able to benchmark the true standard of its higher education against the rest of the world and, indeed, identify the areas that need improvement,” THE rankings editor Phil Baty told The Malaysian Insider.

Mohd Amin said that UM was expecting to enter the THE rankings in 2018 when its publications and citations in the Web of Science database are expected to reach a “more mature” level. “It expects to make a significant impact in 2025 when alternative streams of revenue will be sufficient to finance a significant portion of its operating budget.”

UKM’s Strategic Centre deputy executive director (performance assessment) Associate Professor Dr Masturah Markom told The Malaysian Insider that the university preferred to focus on rankings that were fair to its direction.

“This ranking [THE] has different indicators and it’s more suitable for universities that have been established far longer. Indicators such as “industry income” are unfair to us as Malaysia’s [industry income] is not as much as in the United States, for example. We cannot compete with them so it is best if we spend on rankings that are better suited to our direction and focus,” she said, referring to the Quacquarelli Symonds rankings. — The Malaysian Insider


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 3, 2014.