KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Malaysia’s universities may not be ranked the top 100 in the world just yet, but they are still “soaring upwards”, Education Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said today.
The minister also played down global rankings to determine the success of a university even as he said local institutes of higher learning were climbing up the lists.
“Even though our universities are not among the top 100, many of our universities are soaring upwards,” he told the Dewan Rakyat today.
Idris said that Malaysian universities were poorly ranked due to their relatively young age, in comparison to other universities worldwide.
“With our age, most of our universities are not yet 50 years, except for UM that is 60, we need time,” he said.
However, he said Putrajaya believes at least two Malaysian universities will be able to break into the ranks of the world’s top 100 in the next five years.
“The ministry estimates that by 2020, there will be two public universities that will be in the top 100 in the world,” Idris said, without naming any higher learning institute.
Malaysia’s academic performance has come under great public scrutiny in recent years owing to the government’s ambition to transit from a middle-income nation into the ranks of the first world by focusing on a knowledge-economy.
However, local universities again failed to make it into the Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings that surveyed 142 countries this year.
In fact, no Malaysian university has appeared in the list of 100 universities since the THE started its Reputational Rankings in 2011.
