Ranking: is it necessary at all?
Now the Malaysian universities are spiraling down the rung of ladder of ranking. First they were contended in hovering along the 200th mark whilst our southern neighbours were comfortably at the early double digit level. Over the years, as fewer and fewer students actually bother to secure a place in any of the public universities, the slide has worsened. Naturally, as a defense mechanism, our mortar-board wearing keepers of academic excellence insist that ranking is like a pulling wool over the eye, a whitewash! Yeah, right!
Standards are ascertained by what the majority of people expect of a product. In most cases, the best way to gauge of improving effectiveness and quality of something is to compare it to its neighbours or in this case to a list that has already been around for many years.
Many years ago, badminton pundits used to wonder the greatness of teams from Indonesia and China. Those days, these two great powers of the courts never had the chance to meet as they were from different camps -IBF and WBF. Only when these two governing bodies of badminton merged (BWF) did we see the greatness of both teams and generally for the improvement of the game and spurring the calibre of new players.
Now the Malaysian universities are spiraling down the rung of ladder of ranking. First they were contended in hovering along the 200th mark whilst our southern neighbours were comfortably at the early double digit level. Over the years, as fewer and fewer students actually bother to secure a place in any of the public universities, the slide has worsened. Naturally, as a defense mechanism, our mortar-board wearing keepers of academic excellence insist that ranking is like a pulling wool over the eye, a whitewash! Yeah, right!
Standards are ascertained by what the majority of people expect of a product. In most cases, the best way to gauge of improving effectiveness and quality of something is to compare it to its neighbours or in this case to a list that has already been around for many years.
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| Real McCoy and impostor Alike but not the same! |
This just mirrors our experience in PPSP in USM. Five years of studies did not clear the seed of doubt in our minds on our ability to perform as the man with the stethoscope. Only when we started working and performing better than products from more established establishments did we consider ourselves at par with the rest of the world. And the post graduate certifications just sealed the fact.
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Singapore as a new nation on 1965, decided that to progress, they had to use highly acclaimed institutions as their yardstick of measure. Progress, they sure have. They do not have to bother about ranking anymore because they are already there, having transcended all the uncertainties of a underdeveloped, developing or newly industrialized country!
Malaysian government always have ways of justifying the slide position of public Uni.
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