KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 ― Malaysian universities continued to climb up the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings for the second consecutive year, with two more Malaysian universities breaking into the top 300 universities in the world for 2017/2018.

The new rankings published today also saw Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) overtake Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) as the third highest-ranked university in Malaysia, as Universiti Malaya (UM) continued inching close to breaking into the top 100.

UM climbed up almost 20 places from 133rd in the last edition to 114th in the current edition of the rankings.

 It was also ranked 23rd in the world when it comes to the electrical engineering subject. Among Asian universities, UM was ranked 27th.

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Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) climbed more than 40 places to come in at 229th in the rankings compared to 270th previously.

UPM was also ranked 17th among universities that are under 50 years old.

UKM made the biggest improvement among all local universities, climbing up 72 places to rank 230th and breaking into the top 300 list for the first time.

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Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) also finally made the jump into top 300, coming in at 264th compared to being ranked 330th in the last edition.

UTM meanwhile gained more than 30 places to come in at 253rd compared to 288th last year, but was the only one that did not get awarded a “5 star” rating among Malaysian top five universities.

The top three remained unchanged ― led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States followed by Stanford University and Harvard University, also both in the US.

Neighbouring Singapore’s two universities ― the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University ― both remained in the top 20, with the latter taking over the former this year.

Last week, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh hinted that Malaysia's public universities would record a rise in the QS World University Ranking.