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Public universities fail outstanding test

In a sad com m e ntary on the state of the nation's public unive rsitie s, a gove rnm e nt surve y has conclude d that none of the m are outstanding. -NST Sonia R am achandran and He idi Foo Sun, Nov 04, 2007 The Ne w Straits Tim e s In a sad com m e ntary on the state of the nation's public unive rsitie s, a gove rnm e nt surve y has conclude d that none of the m are outstanding. And only one unive rsity - Unive rsiti Sains Malaysia - m ade it into the se cond cate gory of "Ex ce lle nt"in the first e ve r unive rsity pe rce ption e x e rcise in the country. It re ce ive d a five -star rank ing. Unive rsiti Malaya (UM), Unive rsiti Ke bangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Unive rsiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Unive rsiti Te k nologi Mara (UiTM), Unive rsiti Te k nologi Malaysia (UTM) and Unive rsiti Islam Antarabangsa (UIA) we re lum pe d in the "Good" cate gory. The y had four stars. Those in the Satisfactory list are Unive rsiti Malaysia Pahang, Unive rsiti Malaysia Sabah, Unive rsiti Malaysia Te re ngganu, Unive rsiti Malaysia Pe rlis, Unive rsiti Malaysia Sarawak , Unive rsiti Pe ndidik an Sultan Idris, Unive rsiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Unive rsiti Te k nik al Malaysia Me lak a, Unive rsiti Tun Husse in O nn Malaysia and Unive rsiti Utara Malaysia. None fe ll in the "Le ss Satisfactory" or "W e ak " cate gorie s. The Acade m ic R e putation Surve y (AR ES), carrie d out by a te am spe arhe ade d by the National Accre ditation Board (LAN), involve d 17 of the 20 public unive rsitie s. In re le asing the re sults ye ste rday, Highe r Education Ministe r Datuk Mustapa Moham e d said this was the first tim e the gove rnm e nt was e valuating the quality of public highe r e ducation. "In ge ne ral, public highe r e ducation institutions in the country are good but the re is room for im prove m e nt," he said at the e x pansion of LAN into a ne w body calle d the Malaysian Q ualifications Age ncy (MQ A). The obje ctive of the surve y was to se e how local and re gional acade m icians, corporate figure s and e m ploye rs pe rce ive public highe r e ducation institutions in the country. All public unive rsitie s in the country we re cove re d e x ce pt for Unive rsity Darul Im an, Unive rsiti Malaysia Ke lantan and Unive rsiti Pe rtahanan Nasional Malaysia. The pe rce ption surve y had 10 que stions, including be st ove rall unive rsity, quality of re se arch, acade m ic re source s, the acade m ic re putation of the faculty as we ll as stude nts' unive rsity of choice . The AR ES que stionnaire was se nt to 954 re sponde nts and re ce ive d 272 re sponse s. The y we re from 242 public and highe r e ducation institutions, two Ase an unive rsitie s (National Unive rsity of Singapore and Institut Te k nologi Brune i), nine corporate bodie s and 19 profe ssional and ce rtification bodie s. The surve y starte d in the m iddle of last ye ar and was com ple te d in Se pte m be r. The unive rsitie s we re e valuate d base d on the six points Lik e rt scale with one point classifie d as "we ak " and six points classifie d as "outstanding". MQ A se nior proje ct m anage r in charge of rating of unive rsitie s, Dr Zulk ifli Se nte ri, said although on the whole USM was the only one pe rce ive d to be in the "Ex ce lle nt" cate gory, the bre ak down according to re sponde nts pre se nte d a diffe re nt story. "The acade m icians pe rce ive d USM to be in the "Ex ce lle nt" cate gory, but the non-acade m icians com prising of corporate bodie s and profe ssionals, including e m ploye rs, pe rce ive d UIA, UiTM, UKM, UM, UPM, USM, UTM and UUM (Unive rsiti Utara Malaysia) to be in this cate gory. Mustapa said apart from AR ES, LAN had also com e up with a rating syste m for Highe r Education in Malaysia (Se tara). The pilot rating study, which starte d in August last ye ar and e nde d in July 2007, rank e d unive rsitie s in thre e cate gorie s, nam e ly, re se arch unive rsitie s, broad base d unive rsitie s and spe cialise d unive rsitie s. Howe ve r, Mustapa did not re le ase the re sults of the Se tara rank ings as the data for the pilot proje ct was base d on 2005.
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He said the re we re inaccuracie s in the data and que rie s about te rm inology had be e n raise d. "Also, base d on som e com m e nts from the vice -chance llors, we fe lt it would be be tte r not to re le ase the re sults," he adde d. Anothe r study will be done . Mustapa said: "All the vice -chance llors we re calle d for a brie fing and the y will start inputting the ir 2006 data online on Monday and by e arly ne x t ye ar, we will obtain the re sults of this study which would be m ade public." He said Se tara and AR ES would be conducte d annually by MQ A. O n e x panding the Se tara and AR ES to the private se ctor, Mustapa said the y had conducte d a pilot audit of 10 private highe r e ducation institutions and we re now going to e x te nd it to 100 . "That will be re ady within six m onths and will be m ade public. The audit too will be annual. This audit is to build a database of private highe r e ducation institutions. R ank ing for the m will com e late r," he said. The rank ing and pe rce ption surve y we re im portant, said Mustapa, for the gove rnm e nt to se e how e ffe ctive public unive rsitie s we re in discharging the ir re sponsibilitie s. "W e also want to k now how e ffe ctive the m one y spe nt on the unive rsitie s have be e n in achie ving the obje ctive s. Eve ry consum e r is also e ntitle d to k now which unive rsity provide s the be st e ducation." MQ A chie f e x e cutive office r Datuk Sye d Ahm ad Husse in said pe rce ption surve ys we re good tools for continuous quality im prove m e nt. "O f course , pe rce ption doe s not ne ce ssarily re pre se nt re ality but it's a good ge ne ral indicator of what othe rs think of us. Ask e d if this would re sult in stude nts scram bling for unive rsitie s pe rce ive d to be at the top, he said: "It would have som e im pact on choice as it is a re cognition by socie ty of the unive rsitie s' e x ce lle nce .

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