Of Meritocracy & Top Universities...

There were small snippets of news in the last week with regards to higher education in Malaysia. Firstly, the Ministry of Higher Education announced that it will only "hire the best" for the 20 Malaysian public universities. And secondly, the Minister, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed also announced separately that 1,800 overseas Public Service Department scholarships, 300 more than the previous years, will only be made available to students who obtained places in "renown foreign universities".

Both pieces of news are not new. In fact, I've blogged on the latter here.

While I certainly welcome both "announcements", what appears sorely lacking in the news reports are the details of its implementation. As highlighted many times on this blog, the success or failure of our 'noble' policies lies pretty much in their implementation (or lack of).

In trying to "hire the best" for the local public universities - how will the Ministry or the local university administration approach the delicate issues as to how the "best" is decided?

For example, I'm personally aware of an extremely experienced returning academic overseas who was offered a position by a senior academic at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). However, the offer was apparently vetoed without any reasons given by the "higher ups" (whoever they may be). One man's loss is certainly another's gain, for he is now working in Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) of National University of Singapore (NUS).

Will underperforming deans of local faculties be keen to hire talented academics who might threaten his or her position in the university for example? This is without even taking into consideration the politics of pay and research funds, or for that matter, the issues of racial discrimination in the universities.

Similarly with regards to the scholarship application to "renown foreign universities" - which exactly are these universities? Wouldn't the current crop of students seeking these scholarships require the relevant information in order to prepare the applications to the 'right' universities? How big is the pool of "renown" universities and who decides on this pool? Is Iowa State University included? Or is it restricted to purely the Top 100 in any of the popular global university ranking tables?

Tok Pa, it's good to hear that you are (or at least appear to be) doing the right things - at the very least, it's good for press write ups. However, with no accompanying details to the relevant policies, the announcements are really as good as idle chatter. We certainly hope to hear more (hopefully positive) details on the proposed policies.