UKM slides down a bit

1. In to-day's STAR the details of the THE-QS World University Rankings were published. This year UKM was placed at the low 291 position oiut of the total 2,175 universities. It is not that bad considering many other universities were placed lower. However, the Minister of Higher Education and the VCs were thinking of braeking into the 200 and ultimately the 100.

2. It is not impossible considering the National University of Singapore is placed at number 30, Kyoto University at 25 and the University of Tokyo at 22, among the Asian universities. Of course there are those in India, China, South Korea are also in the top 200.

3.QS Intelligent Unit Head Mr. Ben Sowter stated that one of the key indicators is the greater proportion of international students. I have observed that at least in the USM, UM, UPM and UKM there are already too many international students, especially from the Arab countries, Iran and Indonesia. One way to ensure greater proportion of international students especially from the African and South American, European countries and Indian subcontinents is to make available to them some research grants. At least at UKM I have observed that many professors found it hard to recruit international students because of the unavailability of endowment grants. I realised many European and American universities have such a grant for their international students to carry their research outside Europe and US

4. The recruiter review (10%). There have been some bias on the parts of recruiters local or otherwise of UKM graduates because of the old perception that they couln't talk and converse in English. This is a misconception of the highest level because UKM is established to elevate the teaching in Bahasa Malaysia. This criteria is a bit difficult to achieve, though once again I use the terms not impossible.

5. International faculty ratio (5%). Yes, the number of international students increase but not the international faculty number hence the ratio. At least in my faculty, the Faculty of Science & Technology there are too few international faculties. One of the reasons is of course the renumeration is not compettitive at all, compared to those in NUS; the infra-structure especially the labs are below international standard and the support system is almost non-existence, to exaggerate a bit.

6. International student ratio (5%). UKM promised to increase the post-graduates and decrease the intake of the pre-graduate students. However, the demands for university places is on the increase every year.

7. Student faculty ratio (20%). As I observed in UKM the number of students, post-graduates and pre-graduates is on the increase but the number of faculty members is almost stagnant. We are lucky the retired professors stayed back, as they, like me, don't have other places to go except to beg for a new contract. The reason for non-recruitment of new faculty is the salary is too low and not competitive and the responsibilities of lecturer are increased by almost 60%, especially with those of non-academic domain like doing documents of ISO, MQF and the likes.

8. Citation per faculty (20%). This is a perrenial problem faced by the faculty since I first started teaching at UKM in December 1978. There were those who were prolific lecturers and reserachers and they published many articles in reputed journals every year but there are too many of us who didn't publish an article per year at all, they are 100% lecturers. When I was in the Dean's office I remember less than 10 faculties per school (Pusat pengajian) who had to shoulder the others. There were many initiatives introduced by the university to enhance this phenomenon but failed.

9. Peer review (40%). Most of us in the appropriate professions were the Alma Mater of Universiti Malaya and we have certain loyalty to it, though the past and present authorities didn't recognise this. I have never been invited back to UM for a cup of coffee to remind myself that I am an alumnus of UM. I bet many peers have a softer spots for UM than any other local universities, but this criteria is going to change in the next 5 years as the alumni of other universities would become peers.

10. UKM is also featured in the Arts and Humanities at number 238, in the Social Sciences UKM is at number 203, and UKM doesn't feature well enough in the Life Sciences & Biomedicines, Natural Sciences and Engineering and Information Technology.