Dentist Also Debate

I paid my dentist (she's a chatty one :-)) a visit today. Interestingly enough, the first topic of conversation while I was having my tooth examined was on Universiti Malaya (UM) and the controversy surrounding its world university rankings. And she doesn't know that I'm a blog on these issues (at least, I don't think she knows anyway :-))

She was examining an old filling I had which seemed to be a tad sensitive recently and she discovered that some of the old decay was not properly "cleaned", hence my 10-year old filling had to be re-done. She was then commenting that some of the proper techniques are not properly taught at UM, while it was, at her alma mater, National University of Singapore (NUS).

As if highlighting the standards differential, she commented that the "last boy" of her Form 6 class at Victoria Institution, is now a professor in the universiti's Faculty of Dentistry. She noted that UM's degree in dentistry was not recognised out of Malaysia at one stage, but because the new vice-chancellor who was a dentist himself, then "did some stuff" to have it recognised by extending the course by an additional year. There was also another case whereby due to no proper recruitment process or succession management, a 35-year old was promoted to become a Head of Department.

She argued that there's no real need for so much debate on the university rankings. All that's needed is to take the necessary steps to improve two simple things - lift the minimum entry requirements and attract the right calibre academics. All the rest will pretty much take care of itself. I'm pretty much in general agreemnt with her.

It's great that the general debate and media publicity is able to reach out to the man in the street. No wonder the UM vice-chancellor has been particularly defensive, to the extent of spending previous university funds to put up an advertorial in the Sunday Star and New Straits Times entitled "UM - Worthy of Our Pride". But more on this advertorial later...