Malaysia adopts rating system for its universities

FE Team | Published: November 17, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Karen Champan
Many universities aspire to be world-class and ranked highly, and those in Malaysia are no exception.
IN the past, only institutions such as the four research universities have earned mention in the international league tables.
But if a university does not make it into the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES)-QS World University Rankings and the like, how will it know where it stand - at least vis-a-vis others locally?
Come early next year, public universities will know how they compare when the results of the Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education, otherwise known by its Malay acronym Setara, are released for the first time.
According to Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, the country's 20 public universities will be placed under three categories - research, broad-based and specialised.
"The institutions will be rated within their own categories as it will be unfair to rate a specialised university against a research university," he says.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin believes that rating and ranking are here to stay.
"We must learn how to use them to the maximum advantage for the sake of higher education and the country," she observes.
So why is Malaysia looking at rating rather than ranking?
As explained earlier by Mustapa, the first order of business is to establish a system whereby Malaysians and foreigners will have an appreciation of standards in universities here.
Rating serves this purpose well as people want to know about overall quality before deciding on a university to study or work in.
While ranking is an absolute measure that lists the first to last in any given field, rating sets out to categorise a broad range of qualities, in this case, those of universities.
Rating, according to Mustapa, gives an indication of the overall strengths of an institution and identifies institutions that are of similar standing.
International Association of Universities (IAU) board member Dr Peter Englert concurs, saying that rating means more dimensions are taken into consideration.
"Rating also implies that you are looking at quantitative and semi-quantitative data obtained through social science methodology," he says.
The Prime Minister had said in his Budget 2005 speech that higher education institutions would be ranked to increase their competitiveness.
As a result, Prof Sharifah Hapsah, who was the ministry's Quality Assurance Division director then and later National Accreditation Board (LAN) chief executive, had convened a group of academics to identify aspects or domains in higher education critical for quality assurance and develop indicators for measuring them.
The group engaged multiple stakeholders right from the start, thus injecting relevance into the system. It also consulted benchmark partners consisting of reputable institutions in Asean, Asia and Australia," she says.
According to Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) deputy chief executive officer Assoc Prof Zita Mohd Fahmi, institutions will provide the data for Setara.
This data will then be analysed based on 17 criteria under six domains - academic staff, students' selectivity, research, academic programmes, resources and management.
"Institutions will appoint an individual to key in the data as well as someone to verify it. This will be password-protected to ensure secrecy and accuracy," she explains.
A pilot test for the rating exercise using 2005 data from the public universities has been carried out but the results will not be made public as there are inaccuracies in the data and queries about terminology.
On whether rating will create problems in terms of students wanting to attend only universities rated highly, Mustapa says:
"Every consumer has a right to know which universities provide quality education."
He also points out that the Government wants to find out if the public institutions have met their responsibilities.
"We want to know how effective our ringgit (Malaysian currency) and sen (Malaysian coin) have been in achieving these objectives," he notes.
According to IAU secretary-general Eva Egron-Polak, rankings are an inevitable aspect of the education scene in most parts of the world.
While there are many pros and cons, she adds, it is a way of making institutions compete.
"But it is not an easy task as higher education is getting more complex with 17,000 universities worldwide."
A perception survey covered all 20 public universities except for Universiti Darul Iman, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia.
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) was named best overall university, scoring a five, equivalent to excellent on the Likert scale.
The results were announced by Mustapa at the recent launch of the MQA.
According to Assoc Prof Zita, the survey questionnaire was sent to 954 parties, comprising public universities, Asean universities, corporate companies and professional and certification bodies, with 272 responding.
Respondents assessed universities under 10 domains on a six-point scale - one (weak), two (unsatisfactory), three (satisfactory), four (good), five (excellent) and six (outstanding).
The domains include research quality, academic resources, reputation of academics, quality of programmes and quality of graduates.
On whether the number of respondents provides a true picture for the Ares, MQA project manager Dr Zulkifli Senteri explains that the respondent count of some 30 per cent was considered fair.
"It's not the size of the sample, but the representativeness that matters.
"It's perception; universities should see it positively and continue with their improvements," he notes.
Under the "Best overall university" domain in the Ares, UKM, UM, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Mara and International Islamic University Malaysia scored a four.
Another 10, including Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Universiti Teknikal Melaka and Universiti Malaysia Sabah, scored a three.
USM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dzulkifli Abdul Razak describes the result of the survey as "a good start" for the university.
"Now we have to work harder to maintain this position and 'lead the pack'," he says.
Meanwhile, UPM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Nik Mustapha Raja Abdullah says the university will carry out a gap analysis next year.
"This is to analyse the gap between what we expect and what people perceive. The survey is a subjective assessment, but on average, we have achieved what we were out to achieve," he says.
UM deputy vice-chancellor (academic and international relations) Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin feels that the survey should be taken positively.
"If there is any weakness, we will have to improve to make people accept us more," he adds.
"It will be good for the individual institutions to see the breakdown of results from the survey so that we can study our strengths, weaknesses and opportunities."
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The Malaysian Star