Hunter dismissed a suggestion by Dr. Kamarudin Hussin, VC of Universiti Malaysia Perlis (Unimap) that the rankings favor established universities. I checked Malaysia's ranking on a slightly different and more progressive ranking system, the Raking Web of Universities (RWU) This lists 118 Malaysian institution (many are "colleges" rather than universities and also campuses of overseas institutions). University of Malaya comes top, as it did in QS. The RWU lists 11,898 institution,whereas the QS stops ranking at 701. UM's ranking of 461 in RWU is there a good result. The RWU places more emphasis on factors such as the university's web presence, which perhaps reflects Malaysian institution's better ranking than on QS.
Hunter suggests that the poor performance of Malaysian universities is due to a lack of academic freedom and expenditure on non-academic items. However, he had already commented that universities in countries with authoritarian governments had done well in the QS rankings. Also allegations of lavish entertaining and trips by university staff are not confined to Malaysia.
Hunter suggests Malaysian universities are "dominated by vice chancellors who are intent on micromanaging their universities". This is not a new complaint about universities world wide, nor is his proposed solution: "re-organize Malaysian public universities from the top down". However, if the problem is micromanaging from the top, then I suggest any top down approach will likely make matters worse, rather than better.
Universities are not top-down organizations and VCs do not really run them. Universities are made up of semi-autonomous units which do the real work. A university is similar to a corporation with multiple business units, or a country which is a federation of states (as Malaysia is). There is a delicate balancing act, as to what functions are administrated centrally at a university and what is left to a policy which the parts administer themselves. This also applies at the national level, with government administering some aspects of universities centrally and leaving other aspects to policy. An example is the way quality of research and teaching is set, either through direct setting of standards, or encourager through grants.
Malaysian Universities QS Rankings
146
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289
|
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303
|
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312
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331
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551
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701+
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701+
|
Malaysia in Raking Web of Universities
| Ranking | World Rank | University | Det. | Presence Rank* | Impact Rank* | Openness Rank* | Excellence Rank* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Malaya |  | ||||||
| Universiti Teknologi Malaysia | | ||||||
| Universiti Sains Malaysia | | ||||||
| Universiti Putra Malaysia | | ||||||
| Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia / National University of Malaysia | | ||||||
| Universiti Teknologi MARA / MARA University of Technology | | ||||||
| Universiti Tenaga Nasional | | ||||||
| Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia | |
