KUALA LUMPUR: Universiti Malaya (UM) has successfully climbed to the 13th spot in Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings (QS-AUR) 2020, up from 24th place last year.
Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik said two other universities also recorded significant improvement, namely University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) which was ranked 119th, up from 158th in 2018, while University Malaysia Pahang (UMP) rose to the 134th spot from 290th last year.
“These are the results of a holistic approach that has taken place since June 2018. Besides that, the ministry also of the opinion that the ranking of a university should be valued based on subject specialisation.
“UM, for example, is at the 15th spot in the world in engineering based on the US News and World Report,” he said during a question and answer session at the Dewan Rakyat sitting, here today.
He was replying to a question from Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang (PRS-Kanowit) who wanted to know the number of universities and students in Malaysia for 2019, for both public and private universities, as well as the universities’ global ranking via the Global Higher Education Ranking System.
Maszlee said as of Dec 31 last year, there were 20 public universities and 452 private higher learning institutions which have 552,702 and 576,982 students, respectively.
To a supplementary question from Datuk Noor Azmi Ghazali (PH-Bagan Serai) who wanted to know the initiatives taken by the ministry to improve the universities’ world ranking and its impacts on the country, Maszlee said the government was of the opinion that it would not be focusing solely on the ranking at the expense of integrity.
“We want to have public universities that are globally competitive and produce intellectuals and entrepreneurs who can solve social problems as well as become a catalyst for social change,” he added. - Bernama
