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Public universities fail outstanding test

In a sad comm entary on the state of the nation's public universities, a governme nt survey hasconcluded that none of them are outstanding. -NSTSonia Ramachandran and Heidi Foo

Sun, Nov 04, 2007The New Straits Tim es

In a sad comm entary on the state of the nation's public universities, a governme nt survey hasconcluded that none of them are outstanding.

And only one university - Universiti Sains Malaysia - made it into the second category of"Excellent"in the first ever university perception exercise in the country. It received a five-starranking.

Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM),Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti IslamAntarabangsa (UIA) were lumped in the "Good" category. They had four stars.

Those in the Satisfactory list are Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, UniversitiMalaysia Terengganu, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Universiti PendidikanSultan Idris, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Universiti TunHussein Onn Ma laysia and Universiti Utara Malaysia.

None fell in the "Less Satisfactory" or "Weak" categories.

The Academic Reputation Survey (ARES), carried out by a team spearheaded by the NationalAccreditation Board (LAN), involved 17 o f the 20 public universities.

In releasing the results yesterday, Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said this wasthe first time the government was evaluating the quality of public higher education.

"In general, public higher education institutions in the country are good but there is room forimprovement," he sa id at the e xpansion of LAN into a new body called the Malaysian QualificationsAgency (MQA).

The objective of the survey was to see how local and regional academicians, corporate figures andem ployers perceive public higher education institutions in the country.

All public universities in the country were covered ex cept for University Darul Im an, UniversitiMalaysia Kelantan and Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia.

The perception survey had 10 questions, including best overall university, quality of research,academic resources, the academic reputation of the faculty as well as students' university of choice.

The ARES questionnaire was sent to 954 responde nts and received 272 responses.

They were from 242 public and higher education institutions, two Asean universities (National

University of Singapore and Institut Teknologi Brunei), nine corporate bodies and 19 professionaland certification bodies.

The survey started inthe middle of last year and was completed in September. The universitieswere evaluated based on the six points Likert scale with one point classified as "weak" and sixpoints classified as "outstanding".

MQA senior project manager incharge of rating of universities, Dr Zulkifli Senteri, said although onthe whole USM was the only one perceived to be in the "Excellent" category, the breakdownaccording to respondents presented a different story.

"The academicians perceived USM to be in the "Excellent" category, but the non-academicianscomprising of corporate bodies and professionals, including employers, perceived UIA, UiTM, UKM,UM, UPM, USM, UTM and UUM (Universiti Utara Malaysia) to be in this category.

Mustapa said apart from ARES, LAN had also come up with a rating system for Higher Education in

Malaysia (Setara).

The pilot rating study, which started in August last year and ended in July 2007, ranked universitiesin three categories, namely, research universities, broad based universities and specialiseduniversities.

However, Mustapa did not release the results of the Setara rankings as the data for the pilot projectwas ba sed on 2005.

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He said there were inaccuracies in the data and queries about terminology had been raised.

"Also, based on some comments from the vice-chancellors, we felt it would be better not to releasethe results," he added. Another study will be done.

Mustapa said: "All the vice-chancellors were called for a b riefing and they will start inputting their2006 data online on Monday and by early next year, we will obtain the results of this study whichwould be made public."

He sa id Setara and ARES would be conducted annua lly by MQA. On expand ing the Setara and ARESto the private sector, Mustapa said they had conducted a pilot audit of 10 private higher educationinstitutions and were now going to extend it to 100 .

"That will be ready within six months and will be made public. The audit too will be annual. Thisaudit is to build a database of private higher education institutions. Ranking for them will comelater," he said.

The ranking and perception survey were important, said Mustapa, for the government to see howeffe ctive pub lic universities were in discharging the ir responsibilities.

"We also want to know how effective the money spent on the universities have been in achievingthe objectives. Every consume r is also entitled to k now which university provides the be steducation."

MQA chief executive officer Datuk Syed Ahmad Hussein said perception surveys were good tools forcontinuous quality improvement.

"Of course, perception does not necessarily represent reality but it's a good general indicator of

what others think of us.

Asked if this would result in students scrambling for universities perceived to be at the top, he said:"It would have some impact on choice as it is a recognition by society of the universities'excellence.

Copyright 2007 Singapore Press H oldings Ltd. C o. Regn. No. 198 40 28 68 E. All rights reserved.

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