I’ve taken the liberty to display the top 20 universities of each faculty for display here. (And guess what, University Malaya is respectably featured!) This information may be useful for those interested in finding the top universities for the relevant subject faculties they are interested in.
The Top 20 Biomedicine Universities
The Top 20 Social Science Universities
The Top 20 Arts and Humanities Universities
Interestingly enough, University Malaya has been ranked very credibly in the above surveys, which is conducted by a company - - using a global peer review methodology. UM did not appear in any of the Top 100 tables for the above faculties (only Top 50 available for Arts & Humanities) in 2004. Its rankings however, improved tremendously to 45th for Arts & Humanities, 83rd in Social Sciences and an impressive 82nd for Biomedicine.
The company in which University Malaya is keeping is shown here –
Arts & Humanities
Social Sciences
Biomedicine
We are always keen to compare ourselves with our cousins down south, and for Arts & Humanities, we managed to “beat” National University of Singapore which was placed 56th, down from 17th the year before.
The other immediate observation I can make is that while the earlier 2004 Top 200 Universities which saw significant participation of international universities out of the United States (US) and Europe compared to other ranking tables such as that compiled by the Shanghai JiaoTung University, the recent faculty tables saw an even heavier presence of these ‘international universities’, particularly those from Latin America. I’m not certain if there has been a concerted efforted as part of the survey to provide greater weightage to non-US/Europe universities.
The Southeast Asian (besides Malaysia and Singapore) universities which have established their presence in the Top 100s are:
- Gadjah Mada Unversity, Indonesia (56th Arts & Humanities)
- Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (82nd BioMedicine, 46th Social Sciences)
yes, i believe so. the reason is because UM actually has quite a few highly qualified academic staff. they may not portray the entire image of the lecturers/professors here but nevertheless are well respected among their peers. hence, the high "peer review" scores.
ReplyDeleteprof. jomo and dr. gomez are just some of the notable popular academicians we have. but there are others who holds Ph.Ds from top universities (e.g. Camb, Ox, Harvard, etc.)
it's just sad that these outstanding scholars are shrouded by the bulk of the useless ones. hence, the poor image we receive locally. how sad :(
oh btw, i believe the Shanghai JiaoTung University world rankings had problems with their own methodologies. it seems people are arguing that it favoured universities with notable academicians (Nobel Laureates, Fields Medalist). the argument goes that such consideration is not a valid and true reflection of the current situation because the methodology also takes into account award recipients decades ago.
ReplyDeleteother arguments include endowments by the US federal, state and private organizations that are ridiculously high. because of that, most of the top 20 in the rankings come from the US. harvard receives USD$25.9B. who can beat that?
another argument is the diferences in the education systems between the differing nations. the US tend to "require" their postgrad students to be teaching/research assistants and etc. thus, increasing the number of academic staff.
last but not least, the criteria used greatly biased towards western countries with much emphasise on english-speaking institutions. as can be seen, a heavy weightage is given to citations for the rankings. as such, countries where english is not the primary medium greatly suffers. faculties in local unis esp in UM are actually quite good, especially econs, law, medical sciences, islamic studies, and social sciences. others such as engineering, physical sciences, and business/mangement (for UM) are unfortunately poor.
based upon reading the methodologies used in both these rankings (THES and Shanghai JiaoTong), THES strives more to rank and compare using an unbiased methodology. unfortunately, the facts and statistics received may not be entirely true either. such as the international student category in the 2004 rankings.
I just want to confirm with you people on one thing. Is the medical sciences in UM equivalent to the medicine ? (ie. Student acquiring MD upon graduation and such)
ReplyDeleteIf so, I heard that graduates in UM may not practise in the field of medicine except doing it in locally. This is rather bad, isnt it? I mean their degree in that field is not recognised even by Singapore or such.
I just want to make sure.
Top 50 eh? Qualitatively, I'm not surprised: since I've always maintained that disorganisation in the academic humanities renders all of it dead everywhere. But quantitatively, this is utterly ridiculous. Look, we pwned NUS, NYU, BU, Duke... they have enourmous faculties compared to UM, and lots more publication in the 'humanities' I'm sure. Well. Well.. well.
ReplyDeletejust would like to ask for verification.. is 'biomedical engineering' course is a part in the 'biomedicine' category listed?
ReplyDeleteI suggest that all of these people asking for information on biomedicine put their brains to use, pick up the telephone, and call the Ministry of Education or the University of Malaya if they want more information about courses that they are interested in.
ReplyDelete-
Jerng, I'm not of the opinion that a publish-or-perish system is the best for the humanities. Granted, it's the only way the institution can run, but it has also resulted in a lot of ridiculous muck (of which you are well aware of).
Malaysia provides a very wide scope of unexplored territory under the umbrella of the humanities. This means that there is a lot of pioneering, there are many more places to be covered. It's an intellectually challenging environment and it's the best for a scholar who is earnest in his or her research.
I know that you agree with me, but your sentence could easily be misconstrued by the many readers of this blog, whose thoughts generally run along the line: So UM good or not ah? - and the quick answer for that would be: yes, the brains are good. The brains are very good!
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CatR.
As a Malaysian, I think we are very far behind the world.. We are too arrogant most of the time and easily satisfied. Besides, we hate to admit failure. Our citizens are not as ambitious as others. Look at some smaller countries other than our lovely neighbour. For example: South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. We have the more resources and man power but why can't we be as develop as them.
ReplyDeleteI found that Malaysians are not aggressive enough in exploring the world market, creating Malaysian brand.
Common!! Let's work harder so that we can boast ourself truly..
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteDo you think it is a good news for all Malaysians?
I'm a disappointed student who has no chance to study in UM although I have good results in my STPM.
hai.,what is going on nowadays is goverment had trying to pull down the ranking,they try to help the poor and increase the no of gratuates(who have obtain only s piece ;of paper &use up goverment's money.i don't mean that we cannot help those weak and poor,but why there is darm big gap between america and bangledash,we,malaysia try every method to be moderate at all lkind of efforts,AND, discrimination is still exist between malaysia unknowingly(can't be see by eyes but can be DETECTED by heart)hai.......darm,it's a pity for the development and itegerity of malaysia,and,
ReplyDeleteundertable event(secret) that happen ;between university should be eliminated at once,
anyway,i think that goverment should pick and consider every progress according to the wave and drift of the world now,
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ReplyDeleteDear fellows,
ReplyDeleteUM was once a good university. It has been a University up to the mid-eighties, after that it started to sink,now it has reached the bottom. In the sixties and seventies, you could see well groomed lecturers and pretty clercks with well ironed dress. Now it is a Malay village from Kelatan. The photos of UM staff look like rural wedding with flashy scarfs and ugly "batik" pyjama-like shirts....what will be the next delirium?
How sad, why should we care? we should care for the students who are the first victims, especially the foreigners (poor fellows....) we should care for all the good academes who, hopeless and destroyed by the post-eighties "fill the form and eat noodles but never think" ideology, finally suicide, left ruined and depressed or were thrown out and replaced by spoiled loosers in their new BMW bought in UK during theur so-called PhD (5 years holidays with wife and 7 kids paid by big brother). They say they want to bring UM up...IT IS A JOKE. That is impossible unless you change public'S perception on "success": poneys and dogs show and tongkat ali chocolate discovery AWARDS......To many blackmagic players and gangsters are running the show there, from top to bottom. If you have any expatriate friends who tell you I am going to join UM, never ever allow him to work there, if you care for him.
Little Baba
little baba
ReplyDeleteif we go back to wearing short dresses or tight cheong sam will u come back or not
please, come back. we need your cold objectivity so badly to raise our standards.
The THE Award is a competition basically. It means that if a uni is not listed in the top 100 doesnt mean they didnt make the cut..it could mean that they didnt enter the competition. Eg. IIUM who didnt enter
ReplyDeleteSorry, may I use this info? I need this for my school project
ReplyDelete