Academic expert offers reasons to Malaysian universities' poor rank in 2015

"The rankings of Malaysian public universities slipped drastically in 2015 according to Times Higher Education University Rankings (THES)," says academic expert Murray Hunter .

In 2013, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was ranked in the 87th position, but unfortunately in 2015 no Malaysian university made the top 100 Asian rankings.

Similarly, the QS university rankings showed no Malaysian university made the top 100. The QS rankings reported slight rises in some universities' rakings, while Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), International Islamic Universiti Malaysia (IIUM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM),and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), all dropped in rankings from previous years.

Based on the QS ranking profiles, the reason of Malaysian universities being ranked poorly is due to their loss in significant ground in academic reputation as well as their tendency to be weak in research.

Vice chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Perlis (Unimap) Dr. Kamarudin Hussin claimed that Malaysian universities have plenty of issues that must be resolved and there are many oversights that need fixing. Some of the issues mentioned were :

1. Authoritarian leadership style.
2. Over spending on unnecessary matters (unprofitable overseas travels, luxurious ceremonies, lavish dinners with highly paid entertainers).
3. Unsuccessful investments that cause huge monetary loss.
4. The lack of student accommodation that led to severe overcrowding at hostels.
5. Ethical misconduct among staffs (asking for payments from students to pass exams and mismanagement).
6. Dominating persona of leaders rather than facilitating.
7. Internal conflicts.