Rather recently, there was some controversy regarding the rankings of the two best universities in Malaysia, i.e. University of Malaya (UM) and Science University of Malaysia (USM). This was due to a tremendous drop in rankings in the 2005 Times World University Rankings compared to the previous year’s rankings. For more information about this, go here. But this is not the main aim of today’s post.

The main aim of today’s post is to compile and arrange the rankings of Malaysian public universities, but it seems that there is no easy way to do this. For one, Malaysia does not have any official ranking of all its public universities. Moreover, besides the University of Malaya and the University Sains Malaysia (USM), no other Malaysian university ranks within the 2005 Times World University Rankings (or within any of the previous years’ rankings either). In fact, USM was dropped from the Times Top 200 Universities in 2005, so all we have left is UM’s world ranking. This would not be such a problem if there were other up-to-date and reliable university ranking tables to consult. But the 5 year old Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 2000 and 6 year old Asia’s Best Universities 1999 seem to be the most comprehensive for Malaysian public universities so far, given the inclusion of four Malaysian universities in their tables.

So, for now, we have this:

1. University of Malaya [a.k.a. Universiti Malaya (UM)]
• No. 1 in Malaysia (Placed No. 89 on Times Top 200 Universities in 2004 and Placed No. 169 on Times Top 200 Universities in 2005)
• No. 1 in Malaysia (Placed No. 47 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 2000)
• No. 1 in Malaysia (Placed No. 27 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 1999)
2. Science University of Malaysia [a.k.a. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)]
• No. 2 in Malaysia (Placed No. 111 on Times Top 200 Universities in 2004)
• No. 3 in Malaysia (Placed No. 57 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 2000)
• No. 2 in Malaysia (Placed No. 42 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 1999)
3. Putra University of Malaysia [a.k.a. Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)]
• No. 2 in Malaysia (Placed No. 52 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 2000)
• No. 4 in Malaysia (Placed No. 69 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 1999)
4. Technological University of Malaysia [a.k.a. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)]
• No. 1 Science and Technology University in Malaysia (Placed No. 30 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Science and Technology Universities 2000)
5. National University of Malaysia [a.k.a. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)]
• No. 3 in Malaysia (Placed No. 56 on Asiaweek.com’s Asia’s Best Universities 1999)

Now, I really wish I had more data to draw from given that there are 17 public universities in Malaysia. But, whether due to political motivations or the fundamental lack of resources, we are unlikely to see any sort of official university rankings for public universities in Malaysia anytime soon. So, for now, you will have to be content with what is available.