The Art of Flattery @ Universiti Malaya

Flattery is defined as (1) the act or practice of flattering, or (2)excessive or insincere praise in accordance to Dictionary.com. There are times where flattery is appropriate to give due recognition to the achievements and capabilities of the receipient. There are many other times however, where flattery and the visions of grandeur are contrived and insincere as attempts to “curry favour” or more crudely, to “bodek”.

We have always known that the art of currying favour is pervasive in our political circles with one always trying to outdo another in the attempt demonstrate one’s “absolute” loyalty to a senior politician. This is done in the hope that he or she will be able to gain, whether financially through contract handouts or other pecuniary gains through appointment to influential positions such as town councillors. This culture of currying favour is to be abhorred, although we tend to be more tolerant of it if it’s limited strictly to the sphere of politics.

However, when this “art” permeates into the culture of the elite academia of Malaysia, that’s when you know that things have really gone way too far. Where can you find clear examples of this culture in our universities? Well, they are really not hard to find at all. In the case of Universiti Malaya, you will find them on newspaper advertisements and large billboards and posters. But after a quick search, you can find it right on the university’s website itself!

Here’s some examples of how the university, clearly directed by the vice-chancellor utilises the crude version of the art of flattery and grandeur on his direct and indirect superiors:

UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA
BEHOLD THE MASTERY OF THE OLD GLORY.

Forgive my lack of understanding and comprehension of what the above statements. Maybe that’s why my English did not get an ‘A’ at ‘O’ Levels. I am completely gobsmacked as to what the above means.

Witness ISLAM HADHARI at work in UM!

The Prime Minister, YAB Dato’ Seri Abdullah Hj. Ahmad Badawi wants the nation to be Cemerlang, Gemilang & Terbilang and the nation should produce towering personalities. His Islam Hadhari wants Malaysia to prosper and move forward.

Yes, our Prime Minister will be most pleased with being mentioned in some of the most ungrammatical sentences you can find on the website. There is just so much enthusiasm in attempting to show that the vice chancellor and “his team” are “completely” in line and smitten with the Prime Minister’s vision and philosophy. If only they could channel these enthusiasm more productively, like towards actually constructively improve the standards of the university. The above is not the worst of it. There’s more:

The Minister for Higher Education, Dato’ Dr. Hj. Mohd. Shafie Salleh has diligently toiled in raising the standard of higher education. Through the PM’s and Minister of Higher Education’s untiring and sincere leadership, the nation is witnessing the rise of the universities and other institutions of higher learning.

Now, if the above statements are not meant to bodek the Prime Minister and the Minister of Higher Education, I don’t know what it is. Such statements really have no place in a university. Try searching the top universities in the United Kingdom, United States or even Australia – their vice-chancellors would probably rather one walked over their dead body than to condone such blatantly contrived statements of flattery.

Of course, the vice-chancellor cannot but help himself to end his eulogy with the following:

This year alone, it has done the nation proud by being named as one of the 100 best universities in the world.

Now this brings us back to the original debate. The vice-chancellor probably hasn’t had time to have his web development team update his website yet. Anyway, today you’d find the in the Star letters column, the first of probably many letters to be written by the deans of Universiti Malaya, coming to the defence of their beleaguered vice-chancellor. The letter, written by Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, was entitled “UM Falls in Ranking But is on Right Track”. Hmmm...

Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis wanted to highlight certain “points” which the public may not have been “aware of”. He takes credit for the university’s credible ranking of 82nd in the area of biomedicine. Yes, his is the dean of the Faculty of Engineering. Although he wasn’t absolutely clear, he probably correlates the performance in the biomedicine sector to his 10-year-old biomedical engineering programme at UM.

No, Professor, the field of biomedicine is not equivalent to the degree in biomedical engineering. It is the field which in all probabilities is dominated by the faculty of medicine. The other subjects covered will be pharmacology and possibly biology, biochemistry and biomedical engineering. Is this an attempted case of trying to “hijack” credit?

Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis was also very proud of the fact that

… graduates from this course are well sought after by employers. There are graduates who even changed jobs three times in two years.

Err… is that actually a good thing? I’m now worried about the career guidance tips that our professors are providing our fresh graduates. But that’s probably something to blog about at another time.

Finally, Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis concluded, predictably as follows:

Testimonies and acknowledgements from international peers are very encouraging. For all these, UM truly deservers world recognition.

Sigh. Is this another case of the practice of the art of flattery and bodek at our local premier universities? Is there truth in the allegations (see comment made by an anonymous reader here) whereby the vice chancellor “only nurtures half witted dimwits who will shower praises upon him”.

Is this letter an attempt by the Dean of Engineering to repay the vice chancellor’s role in promoting him?

The promotion exercise is done as if he is the King bestowing datukships. The promotion board consists of his spineless sidekicks who dare not oppose him. Therefore candidates who are not fit to be promoted are promoted… He promotes underachievers like Rom Tamjis who took two attempts to do his Ph.D to become the Dean of Engineering. I am told that the Peer Assessors at Engineering recommended that he be not even shortlisted for promotion.

Are the above allegations true? Are our local premier universities becoming permeated with the culture of unashamed flattery and grandeur all the way from the vice-chancellor down to the lecturers? I’m not an alumni of Universiti Malaya, but I’m hugely saddened by what is happening to our premier local university suffering under a vice-chancellor who has a penchant for grandeur by being occupied with actions such as directing “all faculties to hang his portrait everywhere”.

Once Bitten ... Twice Not Shy!

When I first read YB Lim Kit Siang's blog today, I thought that my eyes were failing me. Was I seeing the same billboards which so peeved me while I was driving around UM during my summer break - except that it had recently been "updated"? I couldn't believe that the UM VC had the audacity to paste the latest THES rankings over last year's ranking, this time "proclaiming" that UM is in the top 100 in biomedical sciences, social sciences and humanities and that UM is among the top 200 universities in the world. I would have thought that as a part-time poet, he would understand the phrase 'once-bitten, twice-shy'.

Apparently not. Didn't the whole debacle about UM dropping from 89 to 169 warn him about the variability of the THES rankings? UM could easily fall out of the top 100 in these subject rankings. Indeed, the methodology for these subject rankings are so vague as to make the variability even greater and hence more suspect. The subcategory rankings are only based on peer reviews and citations score. What if UM falls out of the rankings in these subject rankings next year? The fact that the VC once again pub

licized these subject rankings ensures that he can be made to account for them next year.

Sadly, my sense is that there will always be something in the THES rankings that VC can 'boast' about. This is because it is in THES interest to be more 'inclusive' in terms of having more countries represented rather than less. Given the fact that UM is the leading university in country, it is likely to feature in the top 100 or top 200 in one of the THES rankings, whether it is the overall rankings or the subject rankings.

The VC's tactics is typical of someone who's fighting for his short-term survival. As long as he can 'escape' the recent attacks on him by subterfuge, in this case, subject rankings, he can live to fight another day. Meanwhile, the long term decline of our premier public university continues.

Selamat Hari Raya

Tony and I would like to wish all Malaysian Muslims 'Selamat Hari Raya'. For those of you who are driving back to your hometowns, please drive patiently, safely and carefully. For those of you who are staying in KL, enjoy the empty roads!

UM Vice Chancellor: Foot in Mouth Disease

Both Kian Ming and myself have kept ourselves busy in the last couple of days to blog on the crisis our higher education institutions are suffering from, epitomised by Universiti Malaya's dramatic fall, down the world rankings table. What we are trying to do is not to let the issues rest, so that our government leaders will take the necessary actions to remedy the situation. Even if it's not going to be a complete overhaul, any remedial steps taken to rectify the situation will be an invaluable step.

We were just exchanging emails a few days back discussing the various angles which we can blog about for this issue. We were a tad concerned if we can put sufficient spotlight on the state of our public universities in angles interesting enough to keep readers going. But I suppose, we were definitely unduly concerned, for the current vice chancellor of Universiti Malaya (UM) has the affinity to stick his foot in the mouth.

First, he had the immediate response of "I'm not worried", and subsequent to that, after he probably had some time to "digest" the numbers, he held a press conference to claim that UM "has improved" despite the fall in rankings using some warped logic to hoodwink the public, and possibly his "superiors".

Now, to our horror, we have found out from the Star report on the same press conference held on Monday, he expressed "great happiness" that UM was placed among the top 100 universities in three out of five categories and "its improved marks are achievements to be proud of".

One of the first Malay proverbs which I have learnt to use in primary school was "muka tembok", and this is probably one of the most apt adjectives to describe the UM vice-chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaacob.

Here are some additional quotes for you, and you can decide for yourself if I am being to harsh in my judgement.

Prof Hashim said that “at first glance,” it looked like UM had done badly in this year's ranking but a more thorough study would show that its performance had improved.

The vice-chancellor noted that there were more than 30,000 universities worldwide and UM still managed to be in the top 200. “I want to share my happiness with you that although there are so many universities in the world, we are number 169,” he said, citing other top universities which had dropped by many notches.

Prof Hashim said that while he did not dispute the methodology used for the survey, not all the criteria used were of importance to, or in the interest of, UM. Two examples are the marks given to the percentage of international faculty as well as international students of the university.

As I've demonstrated in my earlier post, the "thorough study" Prof Datuk Dr Hashim did does not show that its "performance improved".

The VC himself have probably lowered further the bar of mediocrity by now saying that "UM still managed to be in the top 200". He might as well have argued that we are still in the top 1,000 universities out of 30,000 in the world! The entire spotlight he has brought unto himself as a result of the rankings debacle, is entirely due to himself. Had he not trumpeted his "achievements" of being 89th in the world that loudly in the past year, the backlash might not have been that fast and furious.

After all, in another reputable rankings table compiled by the Shanghai JiaoTong University (SJTU), UM was not even present in the top 500! And yet, this has received little mention because it has never been highlighted widely. Can the VC answer why UM is not in the top 500 universities of the world consistently since the SJTU rankings were published some 3-4 years ago?

I agree with Prof Datuk Dr Hashim that criteria such as international students may not be that relevant for Malaysian universities, however, it only works out to 5% of the overall score - so it really doesn't explain the dismal performance of the university.

On top of that, I am certain that he knows, if not before, then now, that the reason for UM's "fantastic" performance in the previous year was due to the international students and faculty score for UM which were errorneously compiled by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). The fact that he chose to specifically deny knowledge of the error in public reflects the vice-chancellor's intellectual dishonesty and his intent to mislead the public and his superiors. He stated outright that "...he could not explain why UM had dropped so much in the overall rankings when it seemed to have improved in some areas."

While the VC is probably not the smartest academic in town, I would not give him so much credit to be that stupid not to be able to read simple comparative numbers. Make no mistake about it, I believe that the VC is fighting for his academic life and he knows it. He's just hoping that no one else has the sense or the ability to expose his untruths, and the crisis will just blow over with everyone no longer making references to the debacle.

For the moment, we'll just keep writing, particularly on more expected outbreaks of foot in mouth disease from the VC. For those who has been following this blog for a while will note that this was not the first time the VC has been infected. The level of interest on this issue has been fantastic, and we've been receiving record pageviews on this issue, despite having raised them during the weekend and over the public holidays when traffic is typically much lower. Let's all do our little bits to help change our institutions of higher learning for the better.

UM needs a strategic vision and well-defined goals to achieve that vision

One of the many problems inflicting public officials in our country is that they are often reactive, not proactive. UM’s VC is an especially good recent example of this. He reacted when the 2004 THES rankings came out last year by ordering multitudes of posters hailing the fact that UM was one of the top 100 universities in the world. He reacted again recently when this year’s THES rankings came out showing that UM’s ranking had slipped to 169 by saying that he was not too worried.

The sad fact is that many among the Malaysian public have lost confidence in the quality of our public universities. What is sadder still is the fact that we don’t see how UM will pull itself out of its continual decline into the ranks of mediocrity that is exemplified by the likes of the VC.

As the leader of the leading public university in Malaysia, the VC has to set the strategic vision for the university backed up by well-defined goals and targets that will guide the university towards that vision. Indeed, this is what UM’s website had to say about the mission of the VC:

“To provide strategic leadership and facilitate learning in the pursuit of knowledge and human development through well-designed and quality programmes, research activities and consultancy services”

My questions are these: Does the VC have a strategic vision for the university and does he know how to get there?

Most world class universities have a corporate planning department that helps the VC chart a course for the university in the near term by coming up with 5 year plans. I have my doubts that the VC even has a 5 year plan since taking up his position in April, 2003. If he has, he should certainly make available a copy for the public through his UM website, which is rather sad looking and sparsely populated.

Running a university is already a very complicated task. The job is made even harder when someone like the VC does not have a clear idea of how he’s going to take the university to the next level of excellence. Beyond mere platitudes, I cannot recall when and if the VC has identified clear goals for UM to reach as part of his larger strategic vision.

Given that UM is nowhere near Harvard or Cambridge or even NUS or the University of Tokyo in terms of funding, teaching resources and the like, these goals do not need to be very ambitious. Indeed, while I believe that the UM needs a drastic overhaul if it is to have any chance of competing against the best Asian universities (forget about touching the best universities in the US and UK), I think there is some low-hanging fruit which can be plucked. If even these relatively easy goals are not defined and then achieved, it is unlikely that the larger ones will have any chance of success.

Let me just list a few:

a) Set targets for each department to ensure that a minimum % of its lecturers are qualified up to the PhD level and raise these targets over time. It shocks me that a university that ranks in the Top 200 universities in the world still has many departments were more than 50% of its lecturing staff don’t even have a PhD. This has something to do with the fact that UM sponsors many of its lecturers to do their PhDs overseas and then return to teach at the UM after completion but this churning cannot go on forever. I have heard of situations where lecturers are only sent off to do their PhDs in their mid to late 30s after lecturing at the university for 5 to 10 years. In any of the major state universities in the US, it would be inconceivable that someone could be a full-time lecturer without having received a PhD.
b) Set targets for each department to achieve a desired ratio of professors to associate professors to junior faculty (senior lecturers / assistant professors and below). Many lecturers are promoted to the associate professor level and stay there until retirement. While some of this could be due to non-academic factors (such as race and having the wrong ‘politics’), much of it can be attributed to the fact that there is no pressure to produce enough good work to be promoted to full professor.
c) Base promotions on objective academic measures such as publication of books and articles in journals giving higher weightage to publications that are of a higher repute and books which receive critical acclaim. Do not base promotions purely on ‘administrative duties or contributions’ which is often a buzzword for sucking up and politicking.

I am assuming that this can be done without resorting to underhanded tactics such as decreasing the requirements to obtain a promotion to associate or full professorship.
A university’s greatest assets are its faculty members. If faculty is not given incentives to perform and disincentives if they do not perform, it is hard to see how these assets can be developed and grown over time. And I haven’t even talked about efforts to recruit renowned professors from the region and beyond. Let’s start with the low hanging fruit first. If even these cannot be plucked, then we can only watch while UM slips further and further down the ranks of the mediocre. The sad reality is that nothing in the behavior of the current VC shows that firstly, he’s capable of identifying such low-hanging fruit and secondly, that he’s capable of plucking them even if they have been identified.

International Islamic University: Tudung or Not To Don?

I have at least 15-20 draft blog posts to be written at this point of time. Unfortunately, it just gets humanly impossible to get rid of the backlog without becoming a full time blogger - I'm always amazed how Jeff does it. This is not helped by the urgent need to blog on the case Universiti Malaya plummeting down the world rankings table to raise awareness of the issue (yes, there's more to come!).

However, I thought I must put time aside to blog the equally important and long outstanding issue of International Islamic University (IIU) requirement that all female non-Muslim students must wear the tudung.

Recently, 25-year-old Foo Yueh Jiin, an International Islamic University law graduate didn't attend her convocation in August because she decided to make stand against the university's rule that non-Muslim undergraduates don a tudung like their Muslim counterparts for the ceremony.

As reported in Malaysiakini, Foo thinks the regulation is 'a shame' and should not be imposed on non-Muslim female graduates.

Foo was the only one among the ten non-Muslim female graduates in her batch who protested the regulation. She had applied for an exemption from the campus authorities but was instead told, "The other graduates before you could comply with the regulation, so why not you?"

Foo also added that her female juniors are facing pressure from the campus authorities compelling them to wear tudung irrespective of whether they were Muslims or otherwise.

This case has attracted plenty of response from all parties. Sisters in Islam has issued a statement that:

"Muslims who form the majority must not impose the 'tudung' on women, even if this takes the form of a university dress code. Islam urges its adherents to respect people of other faiths and their practices, and also not to use coercion in matters of religion. This is an important point to bear in mind in our multi-ethnic and multi-religious society."

Members in the opposing ends of the political divide, MCA Youth Chef Liow Tiong Lai and DAP's Member of Parliament for Batu Gajah Fong Po Kuan both expressed their support for Foo's stand and urged IIU to "re-think the controversial regulation".

Sdr Lim Kit Siang has raised in his statement that while the issue was raised in Parliament in 2003, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Dr Mahadzhir Mohd Khir gave the categorical assurance that non-Muslim students in IIU were encouraged but not compelled to don the tudung.

It would appear that the IIU Senate had subsequently in 2004 introduced the rule on the compulsory donning of tudung for non-Muslim for the IIU convocation in clear disregard of the parliamentary undertaking by the Education Ministry and the fact that Malaysia is a nation with citizens from diverse ethnicity, religions, languages and cultures.

Even an UMNO MP has pointed out that asking non-Muslims to have the option to decide whether to don tudung was most insensitive in itself!

Student leaders have now followed up with the issue and have demanded that IIU review the tudung ruling. Spokesman for presidents of IPTA student representative councils, Mohd Efendi Omar [who's also the president of Universiti Malaya's student representative council], said they were not taking sides but felt that it should not be made compulsory for non-Muslims.

“For Muslims there is no question about it, but there should be sensitivity when involving non-Muslims. If they (non-Muslims) feel comfortable wearing the tudung, then they should go ahead, but they should not be compelled to do so if they don't feel comfortable.”

Police reports have also been lodged by various NGOs against the IIU Senate as the ruling was deemed to have breeched the Federal Constitution.

Despite the overwhelming sentiment against the IIU policy, our minister in-charge of National Unity in the Prime Minister's department Datuk Maximus Ongkili, said the decision by the IIU earlier this year was "not a religious one, but merely part of university procedures". He was quoted in the Star on the 26th October:

In a multi-racial country, each community must respect one another. But at the same time we must respect the laws of the country, institutions and organisations to ensure there is no disturbance to the community. As the rule was approved by the university senate, it is not religious in nature but a matter of uniforms that must be followed. It does not breach basic human rights."

This report was also carried in the AFP news, which does not reflect well on the institutions of higher education in Malaysia and will not serve Malaysia's objectives in attracting more foreign students.

The rationale given by Datuk Maximus Ongkili is so lame. He has even added the remark in yesterday's report in the Star that “They were aware of this requirement before they chose to study in IIU.” So, it's the fault of Foo and her coursemates that they "chose" IIU to further their studies!

The comment by our minister in charge of national unity is insensitive and doesn't make sense. He might as well say that if my company decides to enforce a policy to wear the "kijab" for everyone, then everyone has to follow because it's my company's internal policies and the employees are made aware of the requirement prior to them joining the company! Does it mean that any organisation is able to enfore it's own ruling on dress codes as long as it is argued that it's the uniform and it's "non-religious" in nature?

In addition, Datuk Maximus Ongkili is correct in pointing out that "[i]n a multi-racial country, each community must respect one another." This means that non-Muslims should be tolerating, understanding and respecting Muslims. At the same time, Muslims should be recipocrating with tolerance, respect and understanding for non-Muslims. However, it appears to me that our educational institutions are preaching the need for non-Muslims to conform to Muslim practices, which goes against the principle of mutual understanding, toleration and respect for each other.

As the minister in-charge of national unity, Datuk Maximus Ongkili should definitely be more aware of the implications of the above ruling. These are the rulings which gives our public institutions a bad reputation which directly affects the sentiment of the Malaysian minorities. If these actions are not checked, it will not be surprising to find complete seggregation of our young Malaysians by institutions - which is the exact opposite aim of the minister's portfolio.

In primary schools, the non-Malays attend the vernacular schools, in secondary schools, the non-Malays seggregate themselves and are seggregated from the Malays through various informal practices and now, our universities will be seggregated by those which Muslims/Malays attend like IIU and Universiti Teknologi Mara, and those the others attend like Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). This is the perfect formula for national disunity.

Datuk Maximus Ongkili said that "if there were individuals who felt their basic rights were infringed by such rulings, they could lodge complaints to the relevant bodies." Isn't he the best person to lodge these complaints to? Or is this a case of shirking responsibility or avoiding tough "sensitive" issues by leaving to the others?

This negligence applies to the others as well. The deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow declined to comment when contacted by the Star - is his position threatened like his boss, Datuk Shafie Salleh as well?

Lest I be regarded as being a Chinese chauvinist intolerant of Muslim practices - I was one of those who expressed absolute disagreement with Singapore's recently enforced policies to forbid the wearing of tudungs in Singapore schools. It is my firm belief that Muslims should be allowed (but not compelled) to wear school uniforms in accordance to their beliefs. This will also promote a healthy understanding of Muslim practices by the majority Chinese in Singapore. However, being allowed to practice one's personal religious beliefs is completely different from enforcing one's beliefs and practices onto others.

Our ministers have often asked to be given "a chance" to do their jobs. This issue has been outstanding since early September already. Can you please take your "chance"?

Universiti Malaya VC: We Have Improved!

What do our university administrators do when faced with damaging internationally recognised published information?

1. Claim the exact opposite!

And do it with a straight face. Yes, our Universiti Malaya vice-chancellor (VC), Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaakob maintained that its performance "has improved despite falling from 89th to 169th spot in a ranking of the world's top 200 universities compiled by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). This was reported in Bernama yesterday evening.

2. Dig deep for silver linings, and harp on it!

"UM is ranked among the 100 best universities in the arts and humanities category at number 45, social sciences at 83 and bio medicine at 82."

Yes, the above is true and you can see the individual tables here. Although there are plenty of doubters out there, UM did well to secure the top 100 placement for the above faculties. However, you can expect the UM VC to continue to harp on the above to drown the criticisms raised on the drastic "fall" in UM rankings.

One must wonder, why is it that having ranked "top 100" in 3 of 5 faculties, did UM perform so poorly on the overall rankings table? The answer is simple. For the overall rankings, THES takes into consideration several other factors such as "Recruiter Review", "International Faculty & Student", "Faculty Student ratio" and "Citations" score. These other factors contribute to a whole 60% in terms of weightage.

Without taking into consideration these other important factors (to varying degrees), UM actually performed credibly overall in terms of "peer review", ranking joint 77th-85th. Well, if the UM VC reads this blog, he'll probably harp on this point as well :)

To put "Peer review" into perspective, it's sort of a "who's who" rankings survey of academics. Hence, UM performed credibly in this criteria by having certain prominent academics cited by his/her peers. However, this doesn't do the university any good, if the number of students he has to teach is too big, which results in a weak "faculty student ratio" score. Hence a universities' ranking should not be based entirely on the "peer review" score, as rightly tabulated by THES.

3. When all else fails, clutch at straws

This one is quite funny (well, to me anyway). The UM VC claimed that the survey by "the newspaper showed the university's overall score had increased to 23.5 from 16.6 last year."

Numerically speaking, the UM VC is correct in adjusting last years' score of 166.4/1000 to 16.6/100 for comparison against 23.5/100 this year. However, what has not been taken into consideration is the fact that the 23.5 score was achieved with a "moved" goalpost this year as opposed to last year. Comparisons are hence definitely inaccurate and meaningless without understanding the underlying changes in methodology and normalisation.

A clear indication of how the scores tabulated has changed between last year and this year, is in the way the "peer review" score was derived. Statisticians will easily spot the difference by identifying the major difference in the steepness of the curve between last year and this year. For example the normalised peer review score in 2004, had a 80 points (out of 100) difference between the 1st and the 32nd university, whereas this year, it takes 166 universities to make the same 80 points difference. Given reasonable assumptions - that universities throughout the world don't change so drastically over 1 year - THES has definitely changed the way they calculated the peer review scores - rendering our UM VC's claim as ----. (Those interested in discussing details of the above, can always email me).

The UM VC has either shown himself to be dishonest in his usage of statistics to portray an "improved" status or has very poor analytical skills in deciphering data. Either way, he has portrayed Universiti Malaya and its administration in extremely poor light.

So, what next, Prof Datuk Dr?

Given that he is able to "read" tables comparing last year's 166.4/1000 score against this year's 23.5/100 score, I'm certain the VC is fully capable of comparating the scores of the other indicators as well.

For example, why did the VC not highlight the drop in the international student score from 68/100 to 7/100, as well as the international faculty score from 29/100 to 12/100? This is likely to be the simplest comparison which will provide the most straightforward answer to UM's lofty rankings in the previous year's table.

You know what? I actually think that in "real terms", UM did indeed improve its rankings. This is because, in "real terms", UM never made it to the Top 200 list for 2004. By doing a simple replacement of the international student and faculty scores with this year's numbers (7 and 12), this will have resulted in a final score of 86.6 for the previous year. That would have meant it would have been out of the list as the 200th ranked university had a score of 102.9. Hence, UM managed to "improve" it's rankings from outside 200 to 169th due to a better peer review score this year.
It's just "sad", to quote our Prime Minister, and too bad that our university administrators will never face up to the courage of admitting that their "achievement" last year was on the back of spurious data. After all they have spent so much effort and funds to publicise their "world-class" achievements, it must be too "malu" for them to say otherwise now.

As a result, instead of celebrating our entry into the Top 200 universities for the first time, the relevant parties are spending much time over outright denial and clutching at straws.

The UM's motto is "Ilmu Punca Kemajuan" or loosely translated as "Knowledge is the Source of Progress". With the university academics and administrators continuing to hide behind a facade of false knowledge, it is no wonder that we are not expected to progress. Instead now, we are hearing parties friendly to the university administrators such as the Malaysian Youth Council (MYC) YAB Dato' Seri Dr. Mohamad Khir Toyo claiming that:

"MYC is of the opinion that the criteria used by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) are more appropriate to measure the performance of universities in the West in line with the objectives of their establishment and functions."

And hence by default, the table is not relevant to Malaysians. I will not be surprised if UM VC leads in coming up with an alternatively compiled survey to indicate that UM is indeed in the top 50 in the world. After all, he has the precedent set by YAB Dato' Seri Dr. Mohamad Khir Toyo to follow when the latter made up his own statistics to show that Selangor is indeed a "developed state".

So, what next, Prof Datuk Dr? Display intellectual honesty for once, admit the university's weaknesses and seek to improve real performance? Or clutch at more straws and create UM's own world universities rankings table?

Happy Deepavali

Here's wishing all Malaysian Hindus a very very happy Deepavali from Kian Ming and myself.

The festival of light comes at the most appropriate time figuratively, amidst the darkness over the crisis of our higher education system. Let's all do our parts to keep the candles lit, in the hope that the education authorities will see the light and ensure that the future remains bright. :)

UM should never have been in the Top 100 in the first place

Having examined the content of the 2005 THES rankings and comparing it to the 2004 THES rankings, it is clear that UM should not have been ranked in the Top 100 in the 2004 THES rankings in the first place. Tony blogged about it before, and I want to highlight this year's numbers. Unlike the 2004 THES rankings, this year's final scores were normalized to 100 instead of 1000. In the 2004 rankings, UM achieved a final score of 166.4, but 40% of this score (68 out of 166.4) came from a very high mark on the International Student Score which would have made UM the 6th most international university in the world. Tony and I suspected that this was perhaps a miscoding on the part of those who compiled the numbers perhaps because they counted Chinese, Indian and other non-Bumiputera students in UM (as well as USM) as foreign students.

The 2005 THES rankings apparently have corrected this error. UM receives a paltry score of 7 out of a 100 (normalized against the LSE, the most international university in the world) instead of the 68 out of a 100 it received in the 2004 THES rankings. If UM had scored 68 in the International Students Score again in the 2005 THES rankings, it would have had a final score of 28.2 which would have made it jointed 103 (tied with SOAS and Leeds University in the UK). This is not to far off from the 89th position it achieved in 2004 and only constitutes a difference of 1 point on the final overall scale in the 2005 rankings.

If UM had scored an equivalent of the 7 it scored in 2005 in the 2004 rankings on the International Student Score, it would have achieved a total score of 104.1 (normalized against Harvard) and a ranking of 198 (very close to the 189th ranking that Tony gave to UM based on a hypothetical score of 10 for UM in the 2004 rankings).

If the VC's of both UM and USM had been more careful in analyzing the basis of their rankings in the top 100 and top 200 universities in the world, they would have realized that their respective positions were based on miscoded or miscalculated scores. It is no surprise that USM has dropped off the rankings completely since it received an even higher International Student Score of 78 in 2004 (4th in the world). Perhaps the UM VC was aware of this fact when he hinted that he was thinking about allowing a foreign intake of 5% at the undergraduate level.

I totally agree with Tony's take that because the score differentials outside the top 50 and especially at the bottom of the table are so small, it is hard to compare between the 150th and the 180th ranked universities (point differential of 2.3, smaller if one didn't normalize against Harvard), what peeves me is the fact that UM trumped the fact that it was ranked in the top 100 last year and then casually says that it is not worried that it has fallen out of the top 100 this year. If this is the case, why trump the fact that you were 89th last year?

I was joking with my wife that UM could just re-use the banners they made last year by changing the 1 in 100 to a 2. And if they fall out of the top 200 list? Maybe hope for a list that publishes the top 300 and change the 2 into a 3.

THES World Universities Rankings Table 2005

For those interested, below is the list of the Top 20 universities of the world compiled by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). You may download the pdf version of the full listing of the Top 200 universities here courtesy of Jeff Ooi.

My alma mater moved up one spot from 5th to 4th, whilst the other place managed a bigger jump from 6th to 3rd. Kian Ming should be happy for Duke University (where he is now) made a major leap from 52nd to 11th. His other alma mater, London School of Economics remained fixed at joint 11th with Duke. See top 20 universities below.



Both universities in neighbouring Singapore remained in the top 50, with National University of Singapore taking 4 places down at 22nd, while Nanyang Technological University improved by 2 spots to 48th. Interestingly, Chulalongkorn University of Thailand debut on the rankings table for the first time at 121st, comfortably 48 slots above Universiti Malaya.

The Top 100 list is dominated as expected by universities from the United States, taking up 31(35) spots, United Kingdom taking up 13(14) spots while Australia made 12(11) spots. Asian universities made up 15(13) spots, with China taking 4(2), Japan and Hong Kong 3 each, Singapore and India 2 each, and the remainder from South Korea. Previous year statistics were provided in brackets.

The key change to this year's methodology is basically the inclusion of "employer's feedback" with regards to which universities they prefer to recruit from. This "recruiter review" carries a weightage of 10%. At the same time, the peer review survey carried out by QS Quacquarelli was expanded from 1,300 respondents worldwide to a significantly larger same of 2,375 academics for the latest compilation table.

Although the "recruiter review" carries only 10% weightage, it is a component which may make significant differences in rankings due to the tiny gaps between ranked between 83 to 200. There's a gap of 70 points in "overall score" between no. 1 and no. 83, but only 9.2 points between no. 83 and no. 200. As an example, although Chulalongkorn University was ranked 48 places above Universiti Malaya, the difference in points was only 3.1 of which due to a favourable recruiter review for the former (16) as opposed to (0) for UM, it contributed to a overall 2.4 difference after taking weightage into consideration.

Hence, it is my personal belief that for the THES rankings table, the top 50 positions maybe fairly accurate, whilst those nearer the bottom may fluctuate wildly due to more subjective data. However, this is purely an exercise meant to provide the estimated position of a particular university to serve as a guide for prospective candidates. It is a useful guide, but at the same time, should not be taken as the biblical truth. :)

School Calendar 2006

For those interested, below is the school calendar for 2006 published in the Star today.

UM's Fall: Denial, Ignorance and Incredulity

The fall in rankings of University Malaya in the world university rankings table has been given a fair bit of prominence by the local print media. The disappointment of our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi was given prominent coverage in the New Straits Times (NST) with the headline "Abdullah ‘very sad’ over UM’s slide in rankings".

The Star has a shorter article entitled "Pak Lah wants UM to find out why ranking dropped". However, the Star must be given credit for being able to provide extensive coverage of the rankings table in the "Star Education" pull-out segment, within such a short period of time.

The responses from various parties from the government and education sector, as well as politicians and concerned parties have come in a fast and furious pace. This blogger actually feels particular "slow" in providing the necessary response! :) Sdr Lim Kit Siang himself have issued 3 statements already on the subject.

Hence over the next couple of days, you can expect Kian Ming and myself to provide additional analysis and commentary on the issue and its wider implications. While the focus of the issue is on UM itself, we believe that the problems faced by UM are really fairly uniform across Malaysia's public universities. Therefore, this issue deserves serious attention by concerned and interested parties like ourselves and others.

But first of all, I'd just like to coagulate the responses that has been provided so far by the parties related to UM and other public universities. Unfortunately, with the exception of Pak Lah, the responses has displayed apathy, the standard denial syndrome and total incredulity to the "drastic" fall in the rankings of the universities.

Our Deputy Higher Education Minister Fu Ah Kiow said the magnitude of UM’s fall in the ranking was "inconceivable".

"There is obviously some inconsistency in the ranking criteria," he said, adding that the ministry understood that some of the criteria were not relevant to local universities. For example, he said, one criterion was the number of international students and lecturers in the universities.

Oh my goodness! First of all, just because UM suffered a large fall doesn't make it "inconceivable". Would someone like to volunteer forwarding our take on the previous year's rankings analysis to our dear inconceivably ignorant ministers?

Secondly, our deputy higher education minister blamed the international students and faculty criteria for the drop in rankings, and that the criteria wasn't relevant for Malaysian universities. Does he know that the only reason why UM was ranked in the top 100 for the previous year is solely because it received (mistakenly) an extremely favourable rating in the same criteria? Does he know that the reason why UM and USM received such favourable ratings is because ethnic Chinese and Indian Malaysians were likely to have been treated as "foreign students" previously?

While, NST was unable to make contact with the vice-chancellor of Universiti Malaya, Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaakob, the Star was able to extract a few invaluable quotes from him.

UM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaacob said that the marks the university obtained is more significant than its ranking. UM scored 0/100 in the employer survey and highest (33/100) for peer review. The university also scored low in citations (1/100) and international students (7/100).

“I am not worried because we are still within the top 200 and for the first time a Malaysian university has broken into the top 50 in the arts and humanities and the top 100 in the social sciences.”

"I am not worried" - if this doesn't make him "worried", then I really wonder what will. This statement only serves to show the type of apathy engulfing the administrators of our academic institutions. I'd hazard a cynical guess that his recent suggestion at increasing foreign student intake is to "easily" climb the rankings table. Not surprising, Sdr Lim Kit Siang has called for the vice-chancellor to be sacked.

Prof Datuk Dr. Hashim Yaacob should resign as University of Malaya Vice Chancellor not only for the shocking 80-place plunge of the nation’s premier university from 89th to 169th position in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Ranking for Top 200 Universities 2005, but for his disgusting complacency when he could say that he was “not worried”.

From Hashim’s reaction, it would appear that there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the University of Malaya – and that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was completely misguided and misinformed to be “very sad” at University of Malaya’s slide in the rankings.

It is most shocking and completely unacceptable that the Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya is the very picture of smug complacency when he should be the most distressed and ashamed person in the country over the university’s drastic drop of 80 places in the 2005 Ranking.

Just a little more than a month ago, UM has arrogantly placed a full page advertisement in NST proclaiming it's excellence - and with a cocksure stance, declared that:

In 2004, UM was placed 89th in the 'University World Ranking' by The TIMES of LONDON. YAB Deputy Prime Minister earlier this year has challenged UM to be among the 50 best universities by 2020. To achieve this target, UM has to improve its position by 2.6 places each year. What is UM's position for 2005? Wait and see in November this year!!!

Yes, now we have seen - so what say you, Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaakob?

Of course, have you seen the large billboard outside UM proclaiming its world class status, are they going to take down the billboard now? Maybe, instead of "UM Sudah Bertaraf Dunia", they should just do the errata: "UM Pernah Bertaraf Dunia". It'll be cheaper than taking down the billboard.

USM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Dzulkifli Abdul Razak was also interviewed by the Star, for the drop from 111th to "unranked". He hypothesized that "the addition of new criteria such as the employer survey could have contributed to the sharp drop in the university’s position."

“Our poor standing could also be attributed to the fact that we are a relatively young university compared to UM which is 100 years old. They have built up a stable reputation in that time.”

Prof Dzulkifli also cited the poor staff-student ratio in Malaysian universities. “Over the past years we have doubled our intake. USM now has 35,000 students including 28,000 undergraduates but the number of lecturers, about 1,800 has not increased in tandem.”

Being academics, I find their responses extremely discouraging and shows their complete ignorance of data and facts, not to mention, the lack of any credible analytical skills. Prof Dzulkifli's theory that UM did better relative to USM because UM have acquired a more "stable" reputation hence achieving better scores in the employer survey is completely off the mark. The fact is, despite a more "stable reputation", UM scored an absolute "0" for the recruiter review.

The blame on the "poor staff-student ratio" while appearing reasonable, was also not the significant issue in this case. USM scored only 15/400 in the 2004 survey (yes, that's 3.75%), hence it could not have been much worse at all in the current year survey. The fact of the matter is simple. The 2004 survey ranked USM as the 4th most international university in the world i.e., with the 4th highest international student population - probably due to the high Chinese Malaysian population in Penang, and that has wrongly resulted in the 111th ranking. This year, the mistake has been rectified and USM rightly, disappeared from the list.

We expect our university academics to be more analytically sound. Instead we find them searching for irrelevant excuses, and go as far as attempting to discredit the rankings table, when it is not in their favour. Our analysis here is made purely from widely available and published data which the same university academics have access to. Their inability to comprehend and interpret simple statistical data, or worse, their possible blatant attempt at ignoring them, makes them unbefitting leaders of our premier institutions of higher learning.

University Malaya Slips to 169th

As partially expected, the latest world university rankings table compiled by The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) which was released yesterday, revealed that Universiti Malaya (UM) slips to 169th in terms of ranking from the previous year's "lofty" 89th position. This was reported in the New Straits Times today.

The survey which was reviewed critically by this blog has earlier given UM the higher ranking due to the high "international students and faculty" scores given, probably errorneously, to UM.

I will be able to obtain more details of the latest university rankings table by Monday, and will together with Kian Ming, will once again review the methodology and calculation of scores compiled by THES to see if this time, the rankings table provide a better picture of where UM stand. So wait for more details early next week.

However, this severe drop in UM rankings serves to give a tight slap on the chancellor's face for the arrogance which he has proclaimed UM to have "achieved" world class standards. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall here and here.

Foreign students to be admitted to UM? Part 1

It was reported that the UM VC, Dr. Hashim Yaacob, is mulling the idea of opening up to 5% of first degree program i.e. undergraduate spaces to foreigners. The same report also had the VC saying that there are currently 1000 foreign students doing post-grad work in UM but no foreign undergrads. This, of course, confirms that UM's ranking in the top 100 universities worldwide that was based on its so-called 'foreign' student population was on shaky grounds. My understanding is that the THES 2004 rankings only took into account the undergraduate population. But even if the graduate population had been included, 1000 foreign students out of a total student population of nearly 30,000 (approximately 3%) would hardly rank UM among the top 50 in terms of % of foreign student intake. It would be interesting to see if this error is corrected in the soon to be released THES 2005 rankings.

But the point of this post is not so much to discuss the rankings but rather to debate the implications of opening up 5% of the undergraduate places to foreigners. It could potentially turn into a political timebomb but let us reasonably debate the pros and cons of this policy before the politicians get hold of this issue.

What was the reason the VC gave for wanting to open up these spaces for foreign students? In the same Bernama report, "He said the move was vital in exposing the locals with more advanced students from abroad".

Let's unpack this statement a little bit more. The underlying assumption of this statement is that admitting foreign students that are "more advanced" will someone benefit the local students. I find this assumption questionable at best. The reason why most foreign universities in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and some universities in the US accept non-citizen students is economic - they can charge them higher fees compared to local students. The recruitment of foreign students is becoming more important as public funding to many of these universities is being squeezed. Indeed, accepting more foreign students has not stopped many of these universities from charging higher fees even for local students, albeit at a lower rate compared to foreign students.

The UK university that I went to for my undergraduate degree, the London School of Economics (LSE), has a foreign student population of 50% and that number is expected to rise. The rationale was mostly economic and because of this, the % of LSE's operating budget that is state-funded is smaller than most UK universities. The foreign students accepted by the LSE have to fulfill A level requirements that are exactly the same as the British students (ABB when I was accepted) but most of the Singaporean and Malaysian students I knew had A level results that far exceeded the entry requirements. It was commonly accepted wisdom that foreign students would generally perform better than the British students.

But this does not mean that having foreign students that were generally better academically than the locals necessarily 'improved' the performance of the locals. There was only minimal contact between the foreigners, who would usually stick with their own ethnic / national groups and the British students, who would hang around each other. There was little, if any, group work done between British and foreign students.

If UM and other local universities cannot encourage local students of different races to mix with each other and to do coursework together, how will it encourage foreign students to interact with locals especially if there are additional cultural, linguistic and nationalistic barriers?

I do not think that my experience at the LSE is only unique to that university. If we examine universities like Melbourne or Sydney in Australia and universities like Nottingham and Bristol in the UK, a consistent picture would emerge.

Economic needs drive the decision to recruit foreign students and the locals do not gain very much intellectually.

The only place where one can make a plausible argument that admitting good foreign students would increase intellectual activity and benefit the locals is at the graduate level. There is presumably more intellectual interaction between graduate students than undergraduates. Many students work in laboratories on common projects or write papers together. Professors too would benefit from having capable graduate students as research assistants and would also be able to collaborate with them on projects and papers. That has certainly been the case for me based on my exposure and experience here at Duke and hopefully, such an atmosphere exists in local universities as well.

One can certainly argue that having foreign students in MBA programs contributes to the intellectual and entrepreneurial atmosphere in good school MBA schools worldwide. In most good MBA programs, group work is a big component of coursework and groups are picked by the MBA schools to maximize diversity - business and educational background, gender, length of experience and yes, nationality. Having a more diverse student population, including diversity of nationalities, is often used as a marketing tool by MBA schools to market to prospective students as well as to blue chip employers.

If the VC's 'musings' does turn into policy, I would be interested to examine the details of this proposal. Is it to generate more revenue for UM by charging foreign students more? Highly unlikely. Is it to expose local students to better foreign students in the hope that the locals will improve? Weak supposition that is not proven by facts. Is this a strategy to target more foreign graduate students? Again, this is not the intended target of the VC, at least not from his initial comments.

Perhaps the VC can examine the rules of and outcomes at the IIU (International Islamic University), which by most accounts is the most international research university in Malaysia at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Even if the VC's theory has some traction, there are still many details to be examined. What will the entry requirements be for foreign students? Where will the foreign students be recruited from? How will the admission of foreign student affect the intake of local students? Read Part 2.

Coming Up...

It has been an unbelievably busy week which is finally "settling" today. Apologies for the "quiet period". Hopefully, I'd be able to put something up by later today. :) Coming up are discussions on rural schools, more international students at Universiti Malaya (by Kian Ming), English policy disjoint and more :)