Set Realistic Goals - Top 20 in Asia Pacific

The Minister of Higher Education recently set a goal of placing two Malaysian universities among the world's top 50 universities by 2010. While it's laudable that we would want to 'reach for the stars', I think it's more productive for us to set more realistic goals. Instead of wanting to be placed among the top 50 universities in the world, we should instead gun for a place among the top 20 universities in Asia Pacific.

Why do I say that it's unrealistic for us to want to rank among the Top 50 universites in the world? (Let's put aside the question of how rankings are determined or whether they are important for the moment) A few reasons.

Firstly, no top 50 university in the world will have only 60% of its teaching staff with doctoral qualifications, which is the target according to the 9MP. Of course, there can be a range within the public universities. For example, UM or UKM might have 80% of its teaching staff with doctoral degrees while Unimas in Sarawak or UUM in Kedah might only have 50% of its teaching staff with doctoral degrees. But even then, no US university that is ranked in the top 200 (perhaps more) would have anything less than 100% of its academic staff with PhDs.

Some might say that PhDs are no the be all and end all to judge the quality of a tertiary education. But since a large component of what universities are about has to do with academic research, isn't the % of academic staff who have gone through the rigors and process of getting a PhD an important indicator for the quality of research coming out of a university? I think it is.

As I've said before, getting a PhD in the US entails a longer and arguably, tougher road compared to getting a PhD in the UK or Australia. And even after graduating from a top program in one of the top universities in your field, you are not guaranteed a job. Many graduate students with newly minted PhDs in political science and economics (two fields I am most familiar with) usually end up with tenure track positions in less well-known universities (Utah State or Binghamton, just to name some examples) and even then the competition for these jobs is very intense.

In comparison, if you have a PhD from a university like Harvard, Cornell, Stanford and Duke, I doubt that you would have a problem finding a job in any of the local universities. You could probably have your pick, if you're willing to accept the constraints that come along with a job in a local university. Even then, the best local universities (UM, USM, UKM) are having problems attracting Malaysians with overseas degrees to come back to teach and do research.

Secondly, there's no way any of the local varsities have the kinds of resources that top US universities have - access to alumni who are more than willing to contribute to ever growing endowment funds; the ability to charge high fees (especially among the private universities) to fund higher salaries, better facilities, etc...; the access to private and public sources of funding for cutting edge projects (especially in the sciences); the ability to attract the best minds from all over the world.

I could go on but you get the drift.

Therefore, instead of trying to aim for the unrealistic goal of getting 2 universities into the Top 50 ranking, I think it makes more sense for Tok Pa and his Ministry to gun for a more realistic goal - that of placing 2 universities among the Top 20 in the Asia Pacific region.

This is not as easy as it sounds. In Newsweek's last survey on universities in the Asia Pacific in 2000, UM ranked 47 after being ranked 27 in the 1999 survey. UM has to go against universities in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and China. Many of the top universities in these countries are already feeling the heat of globalisation and have responded to it using a multitude of strategies. I'll blog later about how I think Malaysia can find a comparative advantage in terms of strategies but for now I'll state my point again - Gun for a top 20 position in Asia Pacific, Discard the notion that we can be ranked among the top 50 universites in the world.