More "Praise" for Universiti Malaya

Calvin & Hobbes is my favouritest comic. I have it's entire collection! And this panel "dugged" up by the Discordant Dude, portrays with the greatest understatement, the malaise in our higher education system.

Having written an earlier letter to highlight aspects of the quality of Universiti Malaya (UM) in the letters column earlier in the week, Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis has written another one, this time to the letters column of the Star Education pull out in praise of UM.

I commented on his earlier letter in the blog post - The Art of Flattery @ Universiti Malaya, and it appears that Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis will continue to provide "rock solid" support to his Vice Chancellor who promoted him to the Dean of the Engineering Faculty. While the previous letter was entitled "UM falls in ranking but is on right track", this one is entitled "Done well despite national demands".

Despite having to shoulder the duty of upholding the government’s policies and ensuring their successful implementation – which universities in other countries may not be subjected to – Universiti Malaya (UM) has performed very well in the international arena.

Let me see if I understood the above statement correctly. Is Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis alleging that "the duty" to uphold the government's policies comprised the standards at Universiti Malaya? Hence the reason why UM did not perform as well as "universities in other countries" as these other universities are not subjected to the same constraints? Interesting, we would definitely be interested in finding out what exactly are the government policies which are hindering the achievement of excellence at our local universities. These hindrances should definitely be voiced so that our universities will be able to achieve higher standards.

With regards to UM's world ranking this year at number 169 compared to 89 last year, it must be noted that this time, the evaluation criteria is more encompassing and comprehensive.

Errr... Prof, doesn't that mean that the previous year's ranking in which UM managed to squeeze into the Top 100 was an anomaly because the evaluation criteria is less "encompassing and comprehensive"? Why should we be happy about it?

And as expected, he ended the letter on a "high", asserting that UM should still be "congratulated". Interestingly, he also appealed for "concerned citizens" of the country to defend UM's image:

Only the best 200 universities are listed and UM is in the list... UM should be congratulated for its excellent performance at the international level. I hope that everybody, including those in UM, will continue to support the university to achieve a better performance in the future.

As UM is an icon of Malaysia, I feel that it is the duty of every concerned citizen of this country to defend its image and continue to support it for the good of our country.

Both Kian Ming and myself are extremely concerned citizens of Malaysia. It is because of our concerns which we feel that it's absolutely necessary to highlight the arrogance and malaise in the current administration of the university, which can only at some point in time, lead to further deterioration of standards at not only UM, but also other public universities in Malaysia.

We would argue that the manner in which both the vice chancellor of UM as well as Prof Dr Mohamad Rom Tamjis have been "defending" the image of the university have instead served to further heap dirt on Malaysia's premier institution of higher learning. Their statements have been dogmatic, arrogant, recalcitrant, constricted as well as analytically and intellectually unsound. We are providing constructive criticism to ensure that UM will not become a fallen icon of Malaysia, which will in effect make it's image indefensible except by parties whose sole interest is to "curry favour" the superiors.