PETALING JAYA, Oct 28 — The government’s special allocation under Budget 2018 will help Universiti Malaya (UM) break into the world’s top 100 universities, former vice-chancellor Tan Sri Rafiah Salim has said.
She said it would channel some of the funds towards upgrading and improving their research facilities.
“It is an excellent move by the government to push the rankings of their universities.
“With the funds, research facilities and equipment can be upgraded for academicians [sic] to conduct the right level of research,” she said.
Rafiah said the additional funds would also help attract international academics to join UM and increase the publication its academic research results.
However, she urged the government to be fair to all other universities so local institutions can all raise their global ranking.
“If the government wants its universities and colleges to excel, they need to spend and invest more to attract the brains and talents from abroad.
“However, it cannot always be one or two universities as the government has to be fair and push other universities to improve their ranking. Such moves will also help retain international educators,” Rafiah said.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak listed various initiatives as the country worked towards its target of becoming a regional higher education hub, including raising the previous allocation of RM235 million for research and development grants for public higher learning institutions to RM400 million in 2018.
Out of this RM400 million, UM will receive an unspecified sum of a "special allocation" for it to become listed among the top 100 universities globally in the near future.
UM is at the leading position among local universities, holding 114th place in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) global rankings for 2017/2018.
The country’s other four research universities in the QS rankings are: Universiti Putra Malaysia at 229th, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (230th), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (253rd) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (264th).
* Editor's note: The print version of this article incorrectly reported that Tan Sri Rafiah Salim is UM's vice-chancellor. It has since been corrected.
