USM Gets Apex Status

The Star Online > Nation Thursday September 4, 2008

USM gets apex status

By SIMRIT KAUR and KAREN CHAPMAN

PUTRAJAYA: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been granted apex status. With it, USM can expect hundreds of millions of ringgit in additional funding to transform it into Malaysia's first world-class university.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said that quantitative and qualitative criteria were used to select USM under the accelerated programme for excellence (apex).
Announcement time: Khaled flanked by deputies Dr Hou Kok Chung (right) and Datuk Idris Haron with a copy of the statement announcing USM as the country's first apex university.
“The selection committee evaluated each university's state of readiness, transformation plan and preparedness for change.
“After a thorough evaluation, the committee decided that only one university truly met all the criteria, namely USM,'' he told a press conference yesterday.
The Cabinet had agreed to USM being given the apex status on Aug 27.
The university that is given apex status is one that has the greatest potential among Malaysian universities to be world-class, and as such, would be given additional assistance to compete with top-ranked global institutions, added Khaled.
He said with apex status, USM will be expected to move up the World University Rankings with a target of top 200 in five years' and top 100, if not top 50, by 2020.
In last year’s Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, Universiti Malaya (UM) was the highest ranked Malaysian university at 246, followed by USM (307), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (309) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (364).
A selection committee headed by former Universiti Malaysia Sarawak vice-chancellor Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Mohamad Zawawi Ismail short-listed USM, UM, UKM and UPM.
USM's transformation plan, entitled “Transforming Higher Education for a Sustainable Tomorrow” focussed, among other things, on diagnostics, medical biotechnology, waste management, pharmaceuticals, nano-technology, membrane technology and vaccines.
Asked why UM was not selected, Khaled said: “I hope the apex status will spur other universities to strive for excellence, too. It's not about selecting the oldest university but choosing one with a doable plan that can help us transform our higher education.”
The other universities that applied for apex status were International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Universiti Tenaga Nasional.
> See StarEducation on Sunday for the full report.
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UiTM in University World News 0042

MALAYSIA: Inter-ethnic tensions touch universities

Writer: David JardineDate: 31 August 2008

Malaysia's complex inter-ethnic culture touches all areas of life, not least higher education. The latest manifestation is the controversy surrounding a call by Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, Chief Minister of the central state of Selangor, the country's most populous, for the local Mara Technology University to open its roll to non-Malays and end its ethnically exclusive admissions policy. Graduates from Mara are favoured for entry into government departments.The Chief Minister, himself a Malay, represents the ethnically mixed opposition front that won the state from the ruling National Front (Barisan Nasional) coalition in the general elections in March; Selangor is one of five states now out of BN hands. Following up on election promises, the opposition grouping is seeking an end to the pro-Malay affirmative action established under the New Economic Policy, itself a creation that came in the wake of the bloody inter-ethnic violence that rocked Malaysia in 1969.The avowed aim of the NEP was to close the economic gap between the Chinese in particular and the Malays, who are constitutionally referred to as bumiputera or 'sons of the soil'. Some Malaysian Chinese, however, can trace their Malayasia blood lines back centuries while all have Malaysian citizenship.The typification of the Chinese as universally wealthy and therefore able to pay for their offspring's passage through university is clearly unsound and has led to many instances of injustice. Should the son or daughter of a Chinese taxi driver or noodles stall operator be excluded from access to higher education or forced to go overseas is a very reasonable question.Among the grievances to be addressed are quota systems in scholarships and university entrance that many Chinese and Indians say marginalise them. Until university tuition fees went up in target countries such as Britain and Australia, some Chinese and a few Indians were able to send their children abroad to study but that window has more or less closed. The call by the Selangor leader was immediately repudiated by Professor Ibrahim Abu Shah, Mara University vice-chancellor, who accused the Chief Minister of "betraying his own race", a drearily familiar charge the opposition openly fought against. This essentially demagogic accusation led to a public protest by 5,000 Mara students demanding that 'their rights' be protected. The demonstration went ahead with the vice-chancellor's approval.In fact, Shah was knowingly stirring the ethnic pot in the belief the Malay-dominated National Front federal government would back him. A statement from the office of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi repudiating the Selangor leader bore this out. Meanwhile, however, there is strong evidence of a shift in Malay opinion on this issue. Azly Rahman, a Malay at Columbia University in the US, writing on the website Malaysiakini denounced what he called the "fascism" of the Mara students.Firebrand opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who will shortly fight a by-election in the hope of returning to parliament after years of imprisonment and banning, will be expected to take up the issue of ethnically-charged higher education policies.An irony does not escape the attention of some observers who have pointed out the continuation of ethnic discrimination in Malaysian higher education amid the government's efforts to lure larger numbers of overseas students, including those from mainland Communist China.