UTM was placed joint 70th in the rankings for universities in Asia.
Three other Malaysian universities have made it to the top 10 in Asean: Universiti Putra Malaysia (6), Universiti Sains Malaysia (joint 7th) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (10). In Asia, UPM is ranked between 121-130, USM between 141-150 and UKM between 161-170.
The last time a Malaysian university was the THE’s Asia top 100 was in 2013 when UKM came in joint 87th.
Heading the list for both Asean and Asia is the National University of Singapore.
For the first time, Singapore has the best two universities in Asia, according to the rankings. The other is Nanyang Technological University which is number 2 in Asean and joint number 2 (with China’s Peking University) in Asia.
Japan and China have the highest density of top institutions in Asia – both with 39.
On June 14, UTM issued an apology over material derogatory to the Hindu and Sikh communities that was used in lectures.
Among others, the module claimed that Islam had introduced civility to the Hindu community in India. Another slide used in the lecture, and which was leaked, claimed that “Sikhism founder Kabir” did not fully understand Islam.
The THE report said while Singapore was the strongest country in Asean in the rankings, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia were also home to some of the continent’s top-ranked universities.
Thailand leads on the number of representatives, with seven, but the highest-ranked institution in the region outside Singapore is UTM.
The THE report quoted UTM Vice-Chancellor Wahid Omar as saying: “Higher education is the catalyst for innovation for the country and the key agent in revolutionising the lives of the community as a whole.”
Jamil Salmi, former coordinator of the World Bank’s tertiary education programme, was quoted as saying that Malaysia had “more consistently focused on excellence in its university sector” than Thailand and Indonesia and had “one of the highest levels of public spending on tertiary education in the world”.
But Simon Marginson, professor of international higher education at the UCL Institute of Education, said that as Malaysia had “two-thirds of the gross domestic product per head of Korea”, it “should be doing much better”, and he questioned whether the country was “paying the price for being a resource-rich economy”.
“This can lead governments to ‘coast’ and underperform in higher education,” he was quoted as saying.
He said: “Malaysian pay scales are relatively unattractive, and talent is lost to Singapore and elsewhere. Another factor is the undeclared ethnic preference that permeates the Malaysian state and public sector. There are doubts about whether the Chinese and Indian communities’ talent in Malaysia have equal opportunity to succeed – not a problem in Singapore, which is fiercely meritocratic.”
He added that the marketing of Malaysia as a “knowledge economy” and “innovation hub” had been “better than the substance”.
He said there “does not seem to be the same institutional desire to excel in research and work to strong international benchmarks” as there has been in Singapore.
Wahid said for Malaysian and other Asean universities to reach the level of those in Singapore, China, Hong Kong and South Korea, institutions must focus on the “quadruple helix” – the “cooperation of academia, industry, the Government and the people” to help “spur the country’s quantum leap”.
“More funding and resources are needed to make a difference, with strong governance and empowerment,” he was quoted as saying.
“Malaysian universities need to make their presence felt and create more impact than they have done, especially in relation to the benefit to the community as a whole.”