Universiti Malaya breaks into top 30 in Asia
THE STAR
KUALA LUMPUR: Universiti Malaya broke into the top 30 of the 2015 QS Asian University Rankings while three other local universities also made gains.
Showing improvement for the fourth straight year, UM is now placed 29th (32 last year) overall among 300 top Asian universities.
Universiti Sains Malaysia climbed to 49 from 57 last year.
Other research universities that improved were Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (from 66 to 61), Universiti Putra Malaysia (76 to 66), while Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia remained in 56th position.
Overall, 17 out of Malaysia's 21 public universities improved on their rankings.
QS head of research Ben Sowter said Malaysia placed heavy emphasis on education and innovation.
“Malaysia demonstrates a serious commitment to improve its regional and global competitiveness,” he said.
Bernama quoted Sowter saying that 507 institutions were evaluated for the 2015 rankings, with 493 being ranked and 300 made it to the published list that saw the National University of Singapore topping the list, ahead of University of Hong Kong.
London-based education and career consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranks Asia’s top 300 universities based on nine criteria including academic reputation, employer reputation, student-faculty ratio, papers per faculty and citations per paper.
The QS Asian University Rankings has highlighted the top universities in Asia since 2009.
The top 10 are dominated by universities from Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and China with Japan having the most with 12.
Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said Malaysia's achievements were due to the hard work by all higher education staff.
“Let’s build from this and continue soaring upwards,” he said.
Speaking to reporters during a briefing titled "Continuous Improvement: Transformation and Success in Malaysian Education," Idris said he was confident that the target for the public universities to be ranked in the world's 100 best universities in the next two years would be achieved through the Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025.
For more information, visit www.TopUniversities.com.