Times Higher Education’s Asia University Rankings for 2017 have revealed that Malaysia is poised to becoming a leading higher education nation.
Malaysia claims seven of the top 200 places, up from four last year, and features a total of nine institutions overall.
The National University of Singapore retains the crown in the ranking.
According to Times Higher Education, University of Malaya (UM) is the nation’s new number one institution. It occupies 59th place overall despite taking part for only the first time this year.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]
According to the data, UM has a particularly strong international outlook when compared with other leading universities in the continent. On this indicator alone, UM ranked at 20th.
Tan Sri Professor Dr Mohd Amin Jalaludin, UM vice-chancellor said in a statement that international students now made up 18 per cent of the institution’s total enrolment, up from five per cent in 2000, and that about 20 per cent of its academics came from abroad.
To accommodate this major shift, the university now offers programmes in English, he said.
Mohd Amin said about 40 per cent of the university’s research papers are published with international collaborators.
He also added that the university’s high-impact research programme, which ran from 2011 to 2016, had “transformed” the research culture among academics and postgraduate students.
He noted that UM has had time to “build up a strong reputation and brand name. However the key element of its success is that it is “always willing to change and transform in accordance to time and needs.
Mohd Amin also said that UM is focusing on collaborations with industry which is already leading to stronger research output and teaching quality.
“This ability to adjust and adapt has made UM more competitive and relevant,” he added.
Mohd Amin said, the Malaysian higher education sector has grown tremendously in the past decade and Malaysia is fast becoming an educational hub for excellence in the Asian region based on the number of “quality universities” and branch campuses of renowned international institutions in the country.
He stressed, however, that there is wide gulf between what smaller countries such as Malaysia can achieve compared with giants such as China.
Times Higher Education’s ranking is based on the same 13 performance indicators as The World University Rankings, but these have been recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia’s universities.
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