OCTOBER 9 — It is cyclical. Even if it is trite.
News junkies in Malaysia are always up for another round of “Have our universities gone lower than low because the latest varsity rankings have just come out?” even if the discussion points are inevitably the same.
Without getting into the truly tiring, let’s ask what do rankings mean and more pertinently what in truth do Malaysians think of our universities — by segments and choices preferred.
But before that, the tragedy this writer — a local graduate — confronts often which unnerves him: Many Malaysians with a degree of sensibilities about them believe with conviction that most of our local graduates suck, and by extension our universities suck.
At the mercy (or not) of rankings
University rankings are invariably attempts to separate the value of institutions by quantifying elements which usually mark the quality of tertiary institutions.
In plain speak, no team of experts visit thousands of campuses worldwide and gather onsite knowledge of what occurs in those universities and thereafter try to qualitatively determine relative merit.
Which means the decision to opt-out of rankings can be defended. But dismissing rankings offhand seems heavy-handed and defensive.
This would be clearer when university rankings and reputations are rationalised.
Universities thrive on reputation, not rank. Universities survive — if without state funding — on fees, research grants and employability of their graduates.
A rank can reflect a generally held opinion about a university.
A generally held opinion cannot be overwhelmed by a ranking, or two.
Harvard and Oxford will remain Harvard and Oxford for a considerable time in the intermediate future to the population of the planet regardless of what the folks at QS or Times think of them.
For a generally held opinion — reputation — is organically realised over time.
More so, rankings can be manipulated to an extent.
Look at QS’ categories: academic reputation, employer reputation, and faculty student ratio, citations per faculty, international students and international faculty.
Faculty student ratio can be upped to compete, but quality instruction might not follow.
Malaysian universities are wont to use their own journals to increase citation numbers.
Malaysia is one of the major education destinations in the world, something like 12th, but this is driven by droves arriving seeking economic opportunities in Malaysia via student passes and marketing initiatives to capture sales in unchartered states — marketing firms being paid handsomely, degrees guaranteed upfront and shifting operations to the next country which has not learnt from returning graduates how much fun there is to be had living and studying in Malaysia.
And just like in every other sector, local business owners — in this case universities — hire foreign workers to replace locals on the basis of competitive pay. Your Bangladeshi business math lecturer earns far more than his countryman manning petrol stations but far less than his Malaysian competitor is willing to go for.
So yes, the international faculty numbers are massaged very well, but not necessarily for the reasons intended by those ranking.
So Malaysian public universities can mitigate some categories to offer promise but never enough to compete seriously with the world class universities.
Again, I’m not over-interested in how Malaysia universities can keep up with rankings. I am saying that our universities can in the guise of being competitive according to the rankings keep the right numbers without actually growing a reputation.
Universities are in the long-term game, and a reputation is something worth investing in.
(Cleaner toilets will genuinely improve the sentiments of foreign observers — atrociously dirty restrooms are not going to be offset by expensive facades within overbuilt campuses, if anything they strengthen the criticism.)
The employment market
Nothing exposes universities more than their products.
Currently, foreign graduates are seen in better light than local graduates from public universities.
Which is why many parents are grateful enough for the 11 years of public education but say no thanks to junior continuing his journey to our public universities. The forecast results of the SPM allows them to start private education leading to a foreign recognised degree or actual study abroad without waiting for the actual results four months later which determines entry to public universities or the pit stop of STPM before state-funded campuses.
These Malaysians — parents and students — figure the initial outlay on a non-public tertiary education is recompensed by a better career inside or outside the country through the possession of these other degrees.
They — just as employers generally have — ranked local public universities, there is no need to wait for QS or Times to validate that view, from their vantage point at least.
Civil service and GLCs
Finally, and most damning, our own civil service and politicians don’t think much of our public universities.
Our best students from the public schools are sent abroad for their preparatory education followed by years as undergraduates, paid for using tax money. The civil service and government-linked companies have retained the policy despite the education ministry’s ambition to possess world class universities. It is a case of the right hand being oblivious about the left hand.
How can our universities produce the best research or have great learning environments when they are denied most of the exceptional students?
Is it possible that the excessive amount funnelled abroad can be redirected to local institutions, in terms of facilities, teaching staff and research initiatives that can better affect more students?
In the end
Rankings, and the debates about them, hide the perversions that caused them and the new perversions caused by them.
Employers, middle class families and government agencies have limited faith in our public universities, what QS or Times have to say about these universities thereafter is negligible.
Our public universities in a race to recover prestige are playing the numbers, not raising their game. Their efforts end up firefighting not reinvigorating public education in Malaysia.
Too many in a situation to change things are passively expressing that our public universities suck. The shadow boxing over rankings is disallowing real progress in the public universities discourse. If we believe in our universities, then we should treat them like they do not suck and not hope they don’t show their suckiness too often.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
