Don't fixate on rankings, Maszlee tells universities

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 16 ― Universities must not obsess over institutional rankings to the point of neglecting graduate quality and becoming profit-driven, said Education Minister Maszlee Malik.

The Simpang Renggam MP told The Star in an interview that the primary goal of universities was to ensure their graduates become productive and considerate members of the society.

“We shouldn’t get carried away with ranking systems that are profit-driven.

“There’s no pride in being a highly-ranked university if our graduates lacked integrity.

“When you don’t have integrity, problems like plagiarism, and lecturers putting their names on students’ papers, arise,” he was quoted saying.

Graduates from the University of Malaya were yesterday listed as the 149th most employable in the Times Higher Education (THE) 2018 list as Asian universities are seen catching up with elite colleges in the West.

The ranking, however, is still far behind the ranking assigned to the National University of Singapore (NUS), now the 10th most hireable university globally alongside renowned Ivy League schools like the US’ Harvard and MIT and the UK’s Cambridge.

The NUS still holds strong as one of, if not the leading university in Asia.

Globally, the US continues to dominate the ranking but the Times series’ data analysis reveals a swiftly narrowing global employability gap.

On a separate matter, Maszlee told The Star that the Education Ministry will introduce a new “good values manual” to be read out fortnightly at school assemblies to instil strong morals against corruption.

He explained that this was based on Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s vision for Malaysian education, which the latter viewed as lacking in civic education now.

Maszlee reportedly said that schools will incorporate more anti-corruption education via the Civics and Citizenship Education (CCE) subject.