Local varsities on par with UK, Australia a fairy tale

Second Education Minister is doing a great disservice to local universities by unfairly comparing them to universities in the developed countries.

KUALA LUMPUR: The “proof” used by the Second Education Minister to “fool’” himself into thinking that Malaysia’s higher education system is now on par with those in developed countries is totally laughable and makes a mockery of the position of Education Minister, said Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming in a reference to a Bernama report.

How many foreign students gave up their places in world class universities in the UK and Australia to come to Malaysia?

“I was shocked when Bernama reported on Saturday that Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh had said that Malaysia’s higher education is now on par with those in developed nations including the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia and that this was proven by the fact that 135,000 foreign students make up 10 per cent of students in national higher educational institutions in the country,” said Ong.

He cited the reasons why he begged to differ:

Firstly, the decision for foreign students to study abroad is governed by a number of factors. This includes the cost of a programme, the cost of living, the entry requirements, the availability of programmes, the medium of instruction, the ease in getting student visas, the availability of scholarships, the prestige of a university, the number of places available to foreign students and the quality of teaching standards, just to name a few.

“To think that our education system is world class and on par with countries like the UK and Australia just because we have a large number of foreign students is dangerous, especially coming from the Education Minister,” reiterated Ong.

“By this reasoning, if we have a larger percentage of foreign students in our universities, our education standard has exceeded that in the UK and Australia.”

Secondly, even using the 2014 QS World University Rankings, Malaysia is way behind universities in the United Kingdom and Australia.

For example, he pointed out, there are 19 UK universities placed within the top 100 including four in the top 10: Cambridge (2), Imperial (2), Oxford (5) and University College London (5).

There are eight Australian universities placed within the top 100 including the Australian National University or ANU (25), the University of Melbourne (33) and the University of Sydney (37).

Even Germany, whose universities are less well known internationally, have three in the top 100: Heidelberg University (49), Ludwig-Maxmilians-Universität (LMU) München (52) and Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) (54), he added. “In contrast, Malaysia has no university ranked in the top 100. Universiti Malaya is the only Malaysian university ranked in the Top 200 at 151.”

“Unless the Minister has access to the 2015 QS Rankings which shows a significantly different ranking for Malaysian universities, it seems silly to conclude that our higher education standards are on par with the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, based on the rankings which the Minister refers to in the Bernama report.”

Local universities would concede they are a long way from international standards

Thirdly, if the Minister really thinks that Malaysia’s higher education system is on par with the United Kingdom and Australia based on our foreign student enrollment, can he produce a list of foreign students who were accepted by Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College or UCL in the UK or ANU, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia but gave up their places to come to study in Malaysia?

“I am in no way trying to put down our universities,” Ong hastened to add. “For some programmes such as medicine and law, it is probably more difficult to gain entry into these programmes in our public universities compared to foreign universities. “

Still, he stressed that local universities would admit that they have much progress to make in terms of teaching quality, infrastructure and funding for research before they reach the standards of universities in the UK and Australia.

“The Second Education Minister is actually doing a great disservice to local universities by unfairly comparing them to universities in the developed countries which have a much longer history, higher per student funding and more established research infrastructure,” cautioned Ong. “Those are standards which our universities should aspire to but have not yet reached.”