KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — Malaysia’s aim of becoming a regional hub for education will not be affected by the world ranking of local universities, Deputy Education Minister P.Kamalanathan said today.
He said although the government did not dismiss entirely such positions, the quality of tertiary education should not focus solely on ranking systems such as the QS World university Ranking (QS WUR).
Instead other factors such as conduciveness and local strengths should be taken into consideration to outline a more comprehensive approach towards the goal, he said.
He was responding to a question by Senator Datuk Chin Su Phin at Dewan Negara as to whether Malaysia’s objective of becoming a regional education hub would be jeopardised by the ranking of local universities on the QS WUR.
Kamalanathan said based on subjects Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) ranked 38th for chemical engineering and 30th for environmental science on QS WUR.
Whereas Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) he said, was 19th in the category of universities below 50 years old which showed the competitiveness of the local universities abroad.
He added that Malaysia had also implemented an Institutions of Higher Education Ranking System (SETARA) and Malaysian Quality Evaluation System for Private Colleges (MyQUEST), which measures the quality of public and private higher education institutions.
He also expressed confidence on attracting 200,000 international students by 2020 based on current positive recruiting trends.
Kamalanathan noted that there were 71,101 international students in Malaysia in 2011 which increased to 83,538 or 17 per cent in 2013.
“So if this rate of 17 per cent or even a minimum of 12 per cent increase per annum can be maintained consistently, I am confident we can achieve our target,” he said. — Bernama
