Stop Chasing Rankings?

Academics have urged local higher education institutions to improve the quality of their programmes and lecturers instead of chasing high university rankings. This is after Malaysia’s oldest institution of higher learning fell out of the top 10 in a prominent global index. On Nov 8, The Star reported that Universiti Malaya had fallen out of the top 10 list in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings: Asia 2024.

Source: https://www.thestar.com.my

Universities had resorted to unethical research practices and spending large resources to boost their positions in global university rankings. They were encouraged to do “citation padding” and “gifted and forced authorship” to increase their publication scores. Citation padding is an attempt to legitimise one’s work by adding references to reputable papers. Gifted authorship refers to the crediting of individuals who did not contribute to the research for favour. And forced authorship refers to a situation where a student is coerced by his superior to share the credit even though the student did all the work.

University rankings may naturally rise once fundamentals of good academia, such as the quality of programmes and lecturers are improved.

UM was ranked 11th for 2024 after falling two places from this year’s Asia ranking. Second in the country was Universiti Putra Malaysia, which improved from 27 to 25, while Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia was third after moving from 30 to 28 on the list.

High rankings would boost the reputation of Malaysian universities and attract enrolment from international students. But surely the focus has to be on improving substance and quality for sustainable rankings.It boils down to meritocracy, professionalism and integrity. Rankings are a by-product not a goal. If you have the right framework, right staff/deans and students, the rankings will follow. Otherwise, all the cosmetics cannot hide for long the “wrinkles and crinkles” in the system. Work on the fundamentals and drop this endless quota system that is if you are serious to have a few top research-based learning institutions in Malaysia.

Reference:

Stop chasing rankings, boost quality of lecturers, universities told, Rex Tan, FMT 15 November 2023