I’ll go straight to the point: What?!? Come on. University Malaya – Malaysia’s highest ranked public university or Institute Pengajian Tinggi Awam (IPTA) was ranked only No. 169 in the recent The Times Higher Education Supplement.

I’m not trying to be discouraging, insulting or [add any other synonym for disparaging here], but I’m sure any realistic Malaysian can see that jumping more than a hundred places in less than four years is almost impossible. And that’s just for University Malaya. What about the second university? Malaysia doesn’t even have another public university in The Times charts yet.

Moreover, I’m sure you would have realised that UM would have to compete with the rest of the universities on the list, and we’re talking about a hundred of them here. Even if half of them stagnate, the other half will not. They’ll be competing as hard as any university in Malaysia can hope to, or perhaps even harder.

Let’s not forget the STPM and matriculation-only policy for public university entry in Malaysia either. By limiting public university applicants to students with only these two qualifications, a large number of the country’s best students will never even enter Malaysian universities, less still Malaysian public universities. The large number of government and corporate scholarships already entice the very best Malaysian brains to overseas universities.

In my humble opinion, if Malaysia is to have any hope of achieving this rather impossible aim, it will have to cut down the number of government overseas scholarships it provides, setup a more discriminating (academically) public university application system, and allow A-Level holders to compete for public university places. But… the negative repercussions of any of the moves I’ve suggested far outweigh the potential benefits.

Now you see why it’s going to be impossible.

[News via The Star Online]