I posted my findings on USM's faculty about a week back. Thanks for all your comments. I thought it would be useful to do a follow up by examining each faculty / school within USM (or any other public university) in greater detail. But such an undertaking is too vast for me or Tony to do by ourselves. Hence, I'm inviting our readers to join us in a little bit of 'investigative' blogging.
I'm asking our readers who are interested to do the following:
1) Pick a faculty or department or school e.g. Public Administration, Electrical Engineering, History, Chemistry, within a public university of which you are relatively familiar with (either in terms of the subject matter or the faculty or both)
2) Compile a list of full time teaching faculty within this department (for USM, go to this link, for other universities, you can visit that university's website)
3) Do a systematic search of the publication record of each of the teaching faculty in that department / school. This can get pretty complicated but I can think of a couple of ways to do this. If you have access to some sort of journal database (especially if you're currently in a university setting), you can search these journal databases for articles by these faculty members. One such example is Thomson's Web of Science or IEEE for electrical engineers. If you don't have access to such journal databases, you can use Google Scholar for a much less scientific / systematic way of finding articles by certain authors. (The advantage of google scholar is that it picks up books as well as articles)
4) Compile some sort of ranking system or calculation method of the articles or books published by these faculty members. For example, you might want to count the number of articles a faculty member has published in high impact journals. (For a litest of such journals, you might want to visit this link provided to us by "Your Fellow Anon", one of our readers. You woud also want to evaluate the impact / importance of books written by these faculty members. For example, a translated textbook (from English into Malay) might not have as high an impact as a book which is trying to show or prove a new hypothesis.
I can think of a number of reasons why something like this would come in handy. It would be a good judge of whether a professor or associate professor has a good publication record or if he or she has gotten that title based on other factors. It would be the basis for comparing across the public universities in Malaysia, if we have a large enough sample size. It would give us different methodologies by which to rank different departments. It would give us some indication of whether our younger faculty members are keeping up in the publishing 'contest', so to speak.
5) Whatever the methodology used, it should be one that is systematic and consistent. We're not trying to 'target' any particular faculty member. We're just trying to evaluate the quality of a department as a whole. If we find certain faculty members who have a publication record that is not commensurate with his or her position, we'll highlight this fact. But we won't do a publication search just for one or two people in a department because we don't happen to like them.
6) The reason why I need more people to get involved is because different people have different knowledge areas and hence, are in better positions to judge what a good publication record is in that knowledge area. For example, I would have no idea how to judge whether a professor in the computer science department has a good publication record or not.
So, if you're interested in joining this informal 'project', please email me at im_ok_man@yahoo.com. We'll post your findings (with complete attribution to you, of course, unless you wish to remain annonymous) on this blog.
P.S. In case some of you are wondering about the title, it's a spin-off from Hillary Clinton's book, "It Takes a Village". In our case, we need the 'kampung' which comprise of our readers to come together to collaborate on this 'project'.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
RM100 million MUST Fiasco
There was an "urgent" call by a reader to blog on the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) as highlighted by Sdr Lim Kit Siang two days ago. Sorry-lah, old men Kian Ming and Tony are never going to be able to match the speed and agility of youthful Sdr Lim. ;)
Anyway, have you readers ever heard of MUST? Well maybe if you ransack the brain compartment where you store old nuggets of trivia, you might just remember it.
MUST was set up in 2002 as a brainchild of our former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammed as a showcase of Malaysia's research and development prowess, "endorsed" by no other than Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MUST was to create “a pool of technology experts, an essential ingredient to attaining the national objectives under Vision 2020” and aimed to have 500 students in five years and 5,000 students in 10 years.
Of course, it is coincidental that MUST was also set up as a private institution owned by the ambassador-at-large for Higher Education, Datuk Effendi Norwawi. whose private investment holding company, Kuching-based Encorp Group Sdn. Bhd. He formed a consortium with the Selangor State Government to establish MUST Ehsan Foundation to enter into the collaboration with MIT to establish the postgraduate university.
It is understood from a reliable source that the Government has funded as much as RM100 million to sponsor students to the university as well as in "fees" to MIT.
As reported by the New Straits Times, MUST is now on the brink of closure less than 5 years after commencement of operations, with less than 10 students enrolled. Unsurprisingly, research "ties" with MIT is dead.
If we can't even get an existing relationship with a top university in the world working properly, can we be at all confident that another RM500 million "collaboration" with the University of Cambridge would not suffer the same fate?
Anyway, have you readers ever heard of MUST? Well maybe if you ransack the brain compartment where you store old nuggets of trivia, you might just remember it.
MUST was set up in 2002 as a brainchild of our former Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohammed as a showcase of Malaysia's research and development prowess, "endorsed" by no other than Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MUST was to create “a pool of technology experts, an essential ingredient to attaining the national objectives under Vision 2020” and aimed to have 500 students in five years and 5,000 students in 10 years.
Of course, it is coincidental that MUST was also set up as a private institution owned by the ambassador-at-large for Higher Education, Datuk Effendi Norwawi. whose private investment holding company, Kuching-based Encorp Group Sdn. Bhd. He formed a consortium with the Selangor State Government to establish MUST Ehsan Foundation to enter into the collaboration with MIT to establish the postgraduate university.
It is understood from a reliable source that the Government has funded as much as RM100 million to sponsor students to the university as well as in "fees" to MIT.
As reported by the New Straits Times, MUST is now on the brink of closure less than 5 years after commencement of operations, with less than 10 students enrolled. Unsurprisingly, research "ties" with MIT is dead.
If we can't even get an existing relationship with a top university in the world working properly, can we be at all confident that another RM500 million "collaboration" with the University of Cambridge would not suffer the same fate?
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
An Equitable Education System?
On the 3rd December 2006, the Minister of Education, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced a budget of RM709 million to build up to 15 new Maktab Rendah Sains Malaysia (MRSMs) and more for upgrades and repairs of existing MRSMs. This announcement actually exceeds the RM90 million announced in the 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP) to build 2 new MRSMs as well as upgrade of existing facilities.
On the 9th December 2006, that is last Saturday, the same Minister of Education announced additional funds of RM2.1 million in the 9MP for the purposes of "upgrading "96 Chinese vernacular schools in the country. Grateful Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting goes out of his way to thank the Minister for his consideration and generous allocation. This was headline news for the local vernacular dailies.
And as political analyst Khoo Kay Peng calculated the complicated sums before arriving at the conclusion that the additional allocation meant a magnanimous RM22,000 for each of the Chinese schools, we are left aghast at state of beggar politics in this country.
On the one hand, we have the richly funded MRSM system which caters almost exclusively to the bumiputera community, while on the other, we have the drastically short-changed vernacular school system which caters largely to the minority communities. Do we have a just and equitable education system in this country?
On the 9th December 2006, that is last Saturday, the same Minister of Education announced additional funds of RM2.1 million in the 9MP for the purposes of "upgrading "96 Chinese vernacular schools in the country. Grateful Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting goes out of his way to thank the Minister for his consideration and generous allocation. This was headline news for the local vernacular dailies.
And as political analyst Khoo Kay Peng calculated the complicated sums before arriving at the conclusion that the additional allocation meant a magnanimous RM22,000 for each of the Chinese schools, we are left aghast at state of beggar politics in this country.
On the one hand, we have the richly funded MRSM system which caters almost exclusively to the bumiputera community, while on the other, we have the drastically short-changed vernacular school system which caters largely to the minority communities. Do we have a just and equitable education system in this country?
Monday, December 11, 2006
Spotlight on USM (Part I)
About a week ago, I said I would look at the qualifications of the USM faculty. First of all, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to write this post. (You'll see why in a minute) Secondly, I'd like to thank Ben Teh, a regular reader who's currently doing his PhD in Japan, for this link to a detailed listing of USM's faculty. Thirdly, I'd like to apologize for what is going to be a long post.
Instead of doing a cursory run through of the USM faculty listed in the link above, I thought I'd do something a little more systematic, for my own benefit as well as for the benefit of our readers (hopefully). So what I did was the following:
- I compiled the name, highest qualification of each USM faculty, the name of the university of that highest qualification, the country of that university
- Of those faculty with PhDs, I tried to calculate the % of these PhDs which were from top universities either in the UK or the US
(This took quite a bit of time since I had to convert the data from pdf to excel form and then had to format the data)
The reasons for doing this were manifold. For example, I wanted to get a sense of the % of faculty at USM who had PhDs, an issue which the MOHE has been and is currently concerned about. In addition, I also wanted to get a sense of where most of our faculty were obtaining their PhDs from. More importantly, I wanted to see if most of these PhDs were obtained from relatively well known / good schools especially given the recent announcement by Tok Pa that postgraduate scholarships will only be offered to those who have been accepted by top schools (which Tony blogged about here). If, for example, many of the current USM faculty did not obtain their PhDs from top schools, how likely is it that future faculty will obtain their PhDs from top schools?
OK, some summary statistics first. I counted approxtimately 900 faculty in the ACU yearbook link found above. I excluded faculty from the dental and medical schools since almost all of the faculty here would be "Doctors". Included also are professors, associate professors, senior lecturers and lecturers whose names are not listed but was mentioned in the yearbook. (For these 'nameless' ones, I don't have information about their highest degree obtained and the related information) There are approximately 190 of these 'nameless' ones.
Of the remaining 710 whose full information are included in the yearbook, a surprisingly high % have PhDs. 547 or approximately 77% have PhDs. This is certainly above the 60% overall target set by MOHE for all public universities. Even if we assume that some % of those listed as senior lecturers and lecturers are not PhD holders (I estimated the figure at 50%), I still find that approximately 67% of the USM faculty obtain PhDs (about 600 out of 900). If this is indeed the case, then USM is well ahead of MOHE's 60% requirement. (If we assume that all senior lecturers and lecturers are NOT PhD holders, then only 60% of USM's faculty are PhD holders, right at the 60% MOHE requirement).
It would not surprise me if the other top two public universities in Malaysia, namely UKM and UM, have a similar % of faculty with PhDs. Which leads me to my next question: If UM, USM and UKM have more than 60% of their faculty with PhDs and if MOHE's overall target is 60% for all public universities, what then is the % of faculty with PhDs in the other public universities in Malaysia? (e.g. UITM, UUM, UPM, UNIMAS etc...) I would think that it would be significantly lower than 60% to drag the overall % for all public universities to about 30%, which is the latest national estimate. Perhaps some of our readers at universities like UITM and UUM can give us as sense of how many of their lecturers are actually PhD holders?
Next, where did these faculty obtain their PhDs from? A large number of them (slightly more than 53%) obtained their PhDs from UK universities. Unsurprising, given our long history of sending students to the UK. Coming in 2nd, at approximately 20%, are US universities. PhDs from Malaysian universities comprise approximately 15% of total PhDs. PhDs from Australian and Indian universities account for around 4.5% and 3.9% of total PhDs, respectively. These five countries (UK, US, Malaysia, Australia and India) account for 95% of all PhDs in USM. The remaining countries include Singapore, Thailand, Canada, Japan and France, just to name a few.
I decided to look at PhDs from UK and US universities since the universities in these two countries account for 73% of total PhDs at USM. I wanted to calculate the % of PhDs from top universities as measured by the latest rankings available. I realize that this is somewhat of a flawed methodolgy for a variety of reasons (rankings may have changed over time, different universities may be good in different fields) but I decided to stick with this method because it's relatively simple and intuitive. Furthermore, even if one argues that rankings are relative and subjective and that different schools specialise in different areas, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that top schools such as Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard or Princeton MUST be good in certain fields and if there are very few PhD holders from such schools in a university, this must account for something.
And so I proceed. Using the latest THES university rankings for UK universities (2007), I allocated a ranking for each of the schools from which at least one faculty member obtained a PhD from. There were a total of 47 UK schools. I then proceeded to calculate the % of PhDs which were obtained from Top 10, Top 20 and Top 30 schools in the UK. The corresponding figures are 4.3%, 21.8% and 49.7%. In other words, only 4.3% of total PhDs obtained from UK universities were obtained from schools that were ranked in the Top 10. More than 50% were obtained from schools that were outside the Top 30.
From the ACU data, I found only 1 PhD holder from Cambridge and none from Oxford. Unfortunately, because PhD holders from the University of London unis are listed as PhD (London), I wasn't able to ascertain the no of PhDs from Imperial College, the London School of Economics, SOAS, UCL and King's College, all of which are good universities, in my humble opinion. Given that the UOL includes a diverse group of member institutions, I gave the overall UOL PhD a ranking of 15, which is the average ranking for all UOLs member institutions in the THES rankings (Goldsmith's at 45 drags the overall UOL ranking down).
33 faculty from USM obtained their PhDs from the UOL. 29 were from the University of Wales member institutions, which includes Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter, Swansea, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, University of Wales, Newport and Cardiff University (average ranking of 51). The other popular universities are Leeds (34)(ranking in parentheses), Sheffield (24), Newcastle (25), Hull (49), Birmingham (33), Manchester (26), Reading (31), Strathcylde (40), Liverpool (39).
I think many of these universities are good universities, though maybe not great universities, and I'm sure that many of them have fine PhD programs in areas where many of the USM faculty obtain their PhDs in. But the fact that only a relatively small number of USM's faculty obtained their PhDs from top 10 UK universities should give pause to the MOHE in regards to their policy of awarding postgrad scholarships only to those who enter into top universities. MOHE certainly has to be careful in how it defines top universties.
Furthermore, this simple exercise that I've carried out, coupled with my personal experience in the UK, leads me to believe that there is some sort of network and networking effect at work here. A university which has accepted many Malaysians in the past is more likely to accept more Malaysians in the future. Furthermore, universities which currently have some number of Malaysians doing their PhD there are likely to attract more applicants from Malaysia to their programs because of familiarity, that it's easier to get settled into a place with at least some fellow Malaysians and so on. Also, current faculty who are from these universities are also likely to know current faculty in those UK universities and can more easily refer potential students to work under this or that professor in that particular UK university.
All this also points to the difficulty of sending potential PhD students to places like Cambridge and Oxford. Firstly, with so few Malaysian professors in our local varsities who are from these universities, it is much harder for them to be credible referees for potential Malaysian PhD students, many of them graduates from local universities. Secondly, it is quite likely that Malaysians with PhDs from Cambridge and Oxford are loth to return to teach in public universities for a variety of reasons (salary, better opportunities elsewhere, poor research environment etc...).
Perhaps, the possibility of an RM500 million 'donation' to Cambridge is supposed to make it easier for potential Malaysian PhD students to get a place in Cambridge?
What is the picture like for US PhDs? Here we find a smaller 'network' or 'networking' effect at work. Because there are more US universities, the USM faculty who have US PhDs come from many different universities. I used the latest US News and World Report rankings to calculate the % of PhDs from top 10, top 50 and top 100 universities. The corresponding figures are 3.2%, 25.3% and 53.2%. Only 5 out of the 168 US PhDs were from Top 10 schools (Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Yale). Slightly less than half of the US PhDs were from schools outside the top 100. Some of these universities - Bradley, Northern Illinois, Mississipi State, Hawaii.
Again, I repeat some of what I've said in previous posts. It's extremely difficult to get a place in a PhD. program in a top US university. It's even more difficult when (a) the applicant does not have a US undergrad degree (b) the applicant does not have referees who know professors in these top schools personally. And if you DO get a place, it's likely that the university will fund your entire program. Given that the current PhD scholarship in Malaysia only funds a candidate for 3 to 3 1/2 years, it makes it even less likely that an applicant who does get accepted into a top 10 or top 20 school will want to take the Malaysian scholarship if he or she can accept a scholarship from the US university in question.
My conclusion from this rather long post? That the MOHE needs to work closely with the local universities to try to place potential PhD students in good programs but at the same time, be realistic that gaining entry into a top 10 program in a US or UK university is not that easy. My sense is that it's probably easier gaining entry into a top 10 UK university given that UK universities are more strapped for funds and hence, more likely to accept a fee paying Malaysian PhD student. So even though I'm a strong supporter of PhD programs here in the US, for practical purposes, it probably makes more sense for MOHE and the public universities to concentrate of UK universities instead.
Finally, the strength of any research university is not to be judged by where the faculty obtained their PhDs from but the quality of research which the faculty produces. This is much more difficult to evaluate in the kind of semi-comprehensive manner which I've done here. But try I will. In a later post, which will have to wait until I finish my exams and some final papers.
Instead of doing a cursory run through of the USM faculty listed in the link above, I thought I'd do something a little more systematic, for my own benefit as well as for the benefit of our readers (hopefully). So what I did was the following:
- I compiled the name, highest qualification of each USM faculty, the name of the university of that highest qualification, the country of that university
- Of those faculty with PhDs, I tried to calculate the % of these PhDs which were from top universities either in the UK or the US
(This took quite a bit of time since I had to convert the data from pdf to excel form and then had to format the data)
The reasons for doing this were manifold. For example, I wanted to get a sense of the % of faculty at USM who had PhDs, an issue which the MOHE has been and is currently concerned about. In addition, I also wanted to get a sense of where most of our faculty were obtaining their PhDs from. More importantly, I wanted to see if most of these PhDs were obtained from relatively well known / good schools especially given the recent announcement by Tok Pa that postgraduate scholarships will only be offered to those who have been accepted by top schools (which Tony blogged about here). If, for example, many of the current USM faculty did not obtain their PhDs from top schools, how likely is it that future faculty will obtain their PhDs from top schools?
OK, some summary statistics first. I counted approxtimately 900 faculty in the ACU yearbook link found above. I excluded faculty from the dental and medical schools since almost all of the faculty here would be "Doctors". Included also are professors, associate professors, senior lecturers and lecturers whose names are not listed but was mentioned in the yearbook. (For these 'nameless' ones, I don't have information about their highest degree obtained and the related information) There are approximately 190 of these 'nameless' ones.
Of the remaining 710 whose full information are included in the yearbook, a surprisingly high % have PhDs. 547 or approximately 77% have PhDs. This is certainly above the 60% overall target set by MOHE for all public universities. Even if we assume that some % of those listed as senior lecturers and lecturers are not PhD holders (I estimated the figure at 50%), I still find that approximately 67% of the USM faculty obtain PhDs (about 600 out of 900). If this is indeed the case, then USM is well ahead of MOHE's 60% requirement. (If we assume that all senior lecturers and lecturers are NOT PhD holders, then only 60% of USM's faculty are PhD holders, right at the 60% MOHE requirement).
It would not surprise me if the other top two public universities in Malaysia, namely UKM and UM, have a similar % of faculty with PhDs. Which leads me to my next question: If UM, USM and UKM have more than 60% of their faculty with PhDs and if MOHE's overall target is 60% for all public universities, what then is the % of faculty with PhDs in the other public universities in Malaysia? (e.g. UITM, UUM, UPM, UNIMAS etc...) I would think that it would be significantly lower than 60% to drag the overall % for all public universities to about 30%, which is the latest national estimate. Perhaps some of our readers at universities like UITM and UUM can give us as sense of how many of their lecturers are actually PhD holders?
Next, where did these faculty obtain their PhDs from? A large number of them (slightly more than 53%) obtained their PhDs from UK universities. Unsurprising, given our long history of sending students to the UK. Coming in 2nd, at approximately 20%, are US universities. PhDs from Malaysian universities comprise approximately 15% of total PhDs. PhDs from Australian and Indian universities account for around 4.5% and 3.9% of total PhDs, respectively. These five countries (UK, US, Malaysia, Australia and India) account for 95% of all PhDs in USM. The remaining countries include Singapore, Thailand, Canada, Japan and France, just to name a few.
I decided to look at PhDs from UK and US universities since the universities in these two countries account for 73% of total PhDs at USM. I wanted to calculate the % of PhDs from top universities as measured by the latest rankings available. I realize that this is somewhat of a flawed methodolgy for a variety of reasons (rankings may have changed over time, different universities may be good in different fields) but I decided to stick with this method because it's relatively simple and intuitive. Furthermore, even if one argues that rankings are relative and subjective and that different schools specialise in different areas, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that top schools such as Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard or Princeton MUST be good in certain fields and if there are very few PhD holders from such schools in a university, this must account for something.
And so I proceed. Using the latest THES university rankings for UK universities (2007), I allocated a ranking for each of the schools from which at least one faculty member obtained a PhD from. There were a total of 47 UK schools. I then proceeded to calculate the % of PhDs which were obtained from Top 10, Top 20 and Top 30 schools in the UK. The corresponding figures are 4.3%, 21.8% and 49.7%. In other words, only 4.3% of total PhDs obtained from UK universities were obtained from schools that were ranked in the Top 10. More than 50% were obtained from schools that were outside the Top 30.
From the ACU data, I found only 1 PhD holder from Cambridge and none from Oxford. Unfortunately, because PhD holders from the University of London unis are listed as PhD (London), I wasn't able to ascertain the no of PhDs from Imperial College, the London School of Economics, SOAS, UCL and King's College, all of which are good universities, in my humble opinion. Given that the UOL includes a diverse group of member institutions, I gave the overall UOL PhD a ranking of 15, which is the average ranking for all UOLs member institutions in the THES rankings (Goldsmith's at 45 drags the overall UOL ranking down).
33 faculty from USM obtained their PhDs from the UOL. 29 were from the University of Wales member institutions, which includes Aberystwyth, Bangor, Lampeter, Swansea, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, University of Wales, Newport and Cardiff University (average ranking of 51). The other popular universities are Leeds (34)(ranking in parentheses), Sheffield (24), Newcastle (25), Hull (49), Birmingham (33), Manchester (26), Reading (31), Strathcylde (40), Liverpool (39).
I think many of these universities are good universities, though maybe not great universities, and I'm sure that many of them have fine PhD programs in areas where many of the USM faculty obtain their PhDs in. But the fact that only a relatively small number of USM's faculty obtained their PhDs from top 10 UK universities should give pause to the MOHE in regards to their policy of awarding postgrad scholarships only to those who enter into top universities. MOHE certainly has to be careful in how it defines top universties.
Furthermore, this simple exercise that I've carried out, coupled with my personal experience in the UK, leads me to believe that there is some sort of network and networking effect at work here. A university which has accepted many Malaysians in the past is more likely to accept more Malaysians in the future. Furthermore, universities which currently have some number of Malaysians doing their PhD there are likely to attract more applicants from Malaysia to their programs because of familiarity, that it's easier to get settled into a place with at least some fellow Malaysians and so on. Also, current faculty who are from these universities are also likely to know current faculty in those UK universities and can more easily refer potential students to work under this or that professor in that particular UK university.
All this also points to the difficulty of sending potential PhD students to places like Cambridge and Oxford. Firstly, with so few Malaysian professors in our local varsities who are from these universities, it is much harder for them to be credible referees for potential Malaysian PhD students, many of them graduates from local universities. Secondly, it is quite likely that Malaysians with PhDs from Cambridge and Oxford are loth to return to teach in public universities for a variety of reasons (salary, better opportunities elsewhere, poor research environment etc...).
Perhaps, the possibility of an RM500 million 'donation' to Cambridge is supposed to make it easier for potential Malaysian PhD students to get a place in Cambridge?
What is the picture like for US PhDs? Here we find a smaller 'network' or 'networking' effect at work. Because there are more US universities, the USM faculty who have US PhDs come from many different universities. I used the latest US News and World Report rankings to calculate the % of PhDs from top 10, top 50 and top 100 universities. The corresponding figures are 3.2%, 25.3% and 53.2%. Only 5 out of the 168 US PhDs were from Top 10 schools (Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Yale). Slightly less than half of the US PhDs were from schools outside the top 100. Some of these universities - Bradley, Northern Illinois, Mississipi State, Hawaii.
Again, I repeat some of what I've said in previous posts. It's extremely difficult to get a place in a PhD. program in a top US university. It's even more difficult when (a) the applicant does not have a US undergrad degree (b) the applicant does not have referees who know professors in these top schools personally. And if you DO get a place, it's likely that the university will fund your entire program. Given that the current PhD scholarship in Malaysia only funds a candidate for 3 to 3 1/2 years, it makes it even less likely that an applicant who does get accepted into a top 10 or top 20 school will want to take the Malaysian scholarship if he or she can accept a scholarship from the US university in question.
My conclusion from this rather long post? That the MOHE needs to work closely with the local universities to try to place potential PhD students in good programs but at the same time, be realistic that gaining entry into a top 10 program in a US or UK university is not that easy. My sense is that it's probably easier gaining entry into a top 10 UK university given that UK universities are more strapped for funds and hence, more likely to accept a fee paying Malaysian PhD student. So even though I'm a strong supporter of PhD programs here in the US, for practical purposes, it probably makes more sense for MOHE and the public universities to concentrate of UK universities instead.
Finally, the strength of any research university is not to be judged by where the faculty obtained their PhDs from but the quality of research which the faculty produces. This is much more difficult to evaluate in the kind of semi-comprehensive manner which I've done here. But try I will. In a later post, which will have to wait until I finish my exams and some final papers.
Medal Obsession Continues... (Part II)
I've written in the first part of "Medal Obsession Continues..." on how our universities were gloating about their achievements to the press. And how, with a little common sense and research, it is obvious for all the (lack of) value of the multi-coloured medals collected by our academics.
Many readers have also commented on the post that I should submit the article to the mainstream and online press... Should I? I doubt that the mainstream media will print the letter though, given its fairly "tough" language. If however, any journalist who are reading this, who'd like to do an article on it, I'm more than happy to be quoted or for the article to be used. Or you can contact me for further clarifications. ;)
Now, back to the second part of my "Medal Obsession" thesis ;). Again using the example of the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)'s participation at the World Exhibition of Innovation, Research and New Technologies Brussels Innova & Eureka in Belgium.
While I have discredited the value of the medals and awards achieved by the Malaysian contingent in Brussels, I'd like to also emphasize the fact that I am not suggesting that universities should not be taking part in trade fairs and exhibitions altogether.
Let's have a look at the Brussels-Eureka event and its target visitors.
However, by looking at the objectives of the event and the types of exhibitors it sought to attract, there may be useful reasons why university researchers could take part in the event. If, for example, the UiTM academics are truly interested to meet financiers or manufacturers to market their products, then such events could possibly be the platform for their commercialisation.
The problem is, it is clear from the total emphasis given to the medal tally by all participating local universities in the past 3 years, and none on the commercialisation aspects, the universities aren't particularly interested in the latter objective of the exercise.
The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) must insist on establishing certain parameters and ground rules for participation of local universities in such events. These ground rules are to ensure that taking part in trade fairs overseas do not become junkett trips for academics to have a jolly time at exotic destinations in Europe. Or equivalent to our local councils toilet inspection trips to Maldives.
First to be established must be key performance indicators (KPIs) to judge the usefulness of the academics participation in the events. MoHE must seek replies from the universities on some of the following questions:
No, our local universities chose to prove their worth by simply taking the easier route, by spending precious funds in dog and pony shows to collect medals of little or no value. And given that the gullible government administration and the uninformed public, the universities have the opportunity to showcase themselves as multiple international award-winning "academics".
Many readers have also commented on the post that I should submit the article to the mainstream and online press... Should I? I doubt that the mainstream media will print the letter though, given its fairly "tough" language. If however, any journalist who are reading this, who'd like to do an article on it, I'm more than happy to be quoted or for the article to be used. Or you can contact me for further clarifications. ;)
Now, back to the second part of my "Medal Obsession" thesis ;). Again using the example of the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM)'s participation at the World Exhibition of Innovation, Research and New Technologies Brussels Innova & Eureka in Belgium.
While I have discredited the value of the medals and awards achieved by the Malaysian contingent in Brussels, I'd like to also emphasize the fact that I am not suggesting that universities should not be taking part in trade fairs and exhibitions altogether.
Let's have a look at the Brussels-Eureka event and its target visitors.
Brussels-Eureka is looking to attract manufacturers, distributors, investors and sales professionals from Belgium and several foreign countries, wanting to establish specific commercial and industrial relationships.The organisers hence seek to attract exhibitors
- To make your inventions, original prototypes or new technology known.
- To establish the necessary contacts to commercialize your patent.
- To realize your commercial or industrial relations.
- To meet manufacturers, financiers and/or traders from various countries.
However, by looking at the objectives of the event and the types of exhibitors it sought to attract, there may be useful reasons why university researchers could take part in the event. If, for example, the UiTM academics are truly interested to meet financiers or manufacturers to market their products, then such events could possibly be the platform for their commercialisation.
The problem is, it is clear from the total emphasis given to the medal tally by all participating local universities in the past 3 years, and none on the commercialisation aspects, the universities aren't particularly interested in the latter objective of the exercise.
The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) must insist on establishing certain parameters and ground rules for participation of local universities in such events. These ground rules are to ensure that taking part in trade fairs overseas do not become junkett trips for academics to have a jolly time at exotic destinations in Europe. Or equivalent to our local councils toilet inspection trips to Maldives.
First to be established must be key performance indicators (KPIs) to judge the usefulness of the academics participation in the events. MoHE must seek replies from the universities on some of the following questions:
- For the past 3 years, with millions spent on taking part in these trade fairs, how much tangible (medals not included) returns are there.
- How many contracts have been signed between our universities with international manufacturers or venture capitalists to explore the potential of the "award-winning" inventions?
- Have there even been any serious discussions with international manufacturers or venture capitalists to develop the products or inventions exhibited by our university academics?
- Or for that matter, have there even been any interest at all, by these foreign parties in our so-called inventions at these trade fairs? After spending millions, how many of the international venture capitalists or businessmen have our academics even had a conversation with?
No, our local universities chose to prove their worth by simply taking the easier route, by spending precious funds in dog and pony shows to collect medals of little or no value. And given that the gullible government administration and the uninformed public, the universities have the opportunity to showcase themselves as multiple international award-winning "academics".
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Medal Obsession Continues...
Ok, I've had it. I've criticised (see here and here) frequently, Malaysia universities' narcissistic obsession with collecting coloured medals at trade fairs and exhibition all around the world.
However, the ease at which these medals can be purchased and paraded as academic achievements to the clueless government and the general public who knows no better, is obviously just too irresistable for university officials.
The latest in the list of universities parading their self-gratifying achievements are Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in the Star here, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in the New Straits Times, here.
Firstly, and as asserted in my previous commentaries on dog and pony show events, these trade fairs and exhibitions which our Malaysian universities love participating are not, as described "competitions", much less "academic competitions".
They are, and I emphasise, for-profit events for the organisers which our universities have paid a lot of money to participate, and in turn receive "tokens" of appreciation from the grateful organisations in the form of well, what better than medals?
Need evidence?
Have a look for yourself the Brussels Eureka web page which listed the number of medals awarded. Count for yourself the number of medals awarded.
Yes, that's a total 303 gold, silver and bronze medal winners, out of a total of 314 participants i.e., a 96.5% success rate. The non-medal winners (11 of them), received a "Diploma" which comes automatically with the purchase of an exhibition booth. There are no losers. Out of the number of participants, a whopping 167 or 53.2% of participants went home with "Gold-coloured" medals.
You'd also be interested to know that these colourful medal awards are not judged by distinguished academic peers but by the organisers themselves, who in all likelihood, have little knowledge or interest with regards to the inventions' reliability, application, efficiency, safety, commercial viability or for that matter, honesty!
Now, if UiTM and other local universities attempt to boast of its impressive achievements at "international levels" based on medal collections from such trade shows, I think it's just absolutely disgraceful and its really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
You'd be interested to know, the Malaysian "academic" contingent comprising of 26 submissions would have forked out anywhere between RM300,000 to RM500,000, depending on various factors such as the size of the floor space and utilisation of supplementary services such as furniture, electricity, telephone etc., just as basic participation fees of the event. Basic accomodation and economy flights alone will easily add an additional RM200,000 or more to the cost of sending our exhibitors. This has yet to take into consideration the "cost" of preparing the relevant prototypes for the "inventions".
Essentially, each year, by taking part in some 4 to 5 such trade shows, the Malaysian public universities are spending millions in public funds, yes, our tax payers' money, on trade fair junketts to London, Brussels, Geneva, Nuremberg and other exotic destinations to collect academically worthless medals.
When instead, the precious funds which our universities are already short of, should have been spent on attaining achievements which really matter, like getting worthwhile research published in internationally renown journals.
I'm tearing my hair out on this issue, but I'm not finished yet, more on our obsession with fancy medals tomorrow's Part II.
However, the ease at which these medals can be purchased and paraded as academic achievements to the clueless government and the general public who knows no better, is obviously just too irresistable for university officials.
The latest in the list of universities parading their self-gratifying achievements are Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in the Star here, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in the New Straits Times, here.
A team of nine researchers from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) carved a name for Malaysia when they brought home five gold and five silver medals from the World Exhibition of Innovation, Research and New Technologies Brussels Innova & Eureka in Belgium last month. The team submitted 10 inventions for the competition held between Nov 23 and 27.The proud and ecstatic vice-chancellor was proudly showing off the team from UiTM for having achieved "perfect" returns, 10 submission returning with 10 medals.
More than 300 inventions were displayed, with participants coming from the United States, Taiwan, Romania, Belgium and Croatia.
...Datuk Seri Prof Ibrahim Abu Shah told a press conference yesterday that the success proved the capabilities of researchers from the university to compete at the international-level.Now, let me bring the Professor there back down to earth before Tok Pa or Pak Lah himself starts lavishing praise on these so-called achievements.
Firstly, and as asserted in my previous commentaries on dog and pony show events, these trade fairs and exhibitions which our Malaysian universities love participating are not, as described "competitions", much less "academic competitions".
They are, and I emphasise, for-profit events for the organisers which our universities have paid a lot of money to participate, and in turn receive "tokens" of appreciation from the grateful organisations in the form of well, what better than medals?
Need evidence?
Have a look for yourself the Brussels Eureka web page which listed the number of medals awarded. Count for yourself the number of medals awarded.
Yes, that's a total 303 gold, silver and bronze medal winners, out of a total of 314 participants i.e., a 96.5% success rate. The non-medal winners (11 of them), received a "Diploma" which comes automatically with the purchase of an exhibition booth. There are no losers. Out of the number of participants, a whopping 167 or 53.2% of participants went home with "Gold-coloured" medals.
You'd also be interested to know that these colourful medal awards are not judged by distinguished academic peers but by the organisers themselves, who in all likelihood, have little knowledge or interest with regards to the inventions' reliability, application, efficiency, safety, commercial viability or for that matter, honesty!
Now, if UiTM and other local universities attempt to boast of its impressive achievements at "international levels" based on medal collections from such trade shows, I think it's just absolutely disgraceful and its really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
You'd be interested to know, the Malaysian "academic" contingent comprising of 26 submissions would have forked out anywhere between RM300,000 to RM500,000, depending on various factors such as the size of the floor space and utilisation of supplementary services such as furniture, electricity, telephone etc., just as basic participation fees of the event. Basic accomodation and economy flights alone will easily add an additional RM200,000 or more to the cost of sending our exhibitors. This has yet to take into consideration the "cost" of preparing the relevant prototypes for the "inventions".
Essentially, each year, by taking part in some 4 to 5 such trade shows, the Malaysian public universities are spending millions in public funds, yes, our tax payers' money, on trade fair junketts to London, Brussels, Geneva, Nuremberg and other exotic destinations to collect academically worthless medals.
When instead, the precious funds which our universities are already short of, should have been spent on attaining achievements which really matter, like getting worthwhile research published in internationally renown journals.
I'm tearing my hair out on this issue, but I'm not finished yet, more on our obsession with fancy medals tomorrow's Part II.
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Smoking RM500m for Cambridge?
Readers of the blog will remember that I posted on "RM500m for Cambridge?" more than a month back. It was posted following a post on Anwar Ibrahim's blog which alleged such an expenditure by Malaysia.
Well, it appears now that there appears to be some smoke, albeit the presence of fire is yet to be confirmed.
Sdr Lim Kit Siang had asked the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Mustapha Mohamed in Parliament whether it is true that the government had agreed to give a RM500 million donation to Cambridge University and that Petronas and Khazanah Nasional had each forked out RM190 million.
This is a budget which is exceeded only by the allocation to Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) as no other local university would be allocated with a bigger sum for 2007.
The Minister of Higher Education denied in a roundabout way that there had been a RM500 million donation to Cambridge University, without completely dismissing the subject, using terms like “premature” and “final decision has yet to be made”.
Well, it appears now that there appears to be some smoke, albeit the presence of fire is yet to be confirmed.
Sdr Lim Kit Siang had asked the Higher Education Minister, Datuk Mustapha Mohamed in Parliament whether it is true that the government had agreed to give a RM500 million donation to Cambridge University and that Petronas and Khazanah Nasional had each forked out RM190 million.
This is a budget which is exceeded only by the allocation to Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) as no other local university would be allocated with a bigger sum for 2007.
The Minister of Higher Education denied in a roundabout way that there had been a RM500 million donation to Cambridge University, without completely dismissing the subject, using terms like “premature” and “final decision has yet to be made”.
When [Sdr Lim] pointed out that using terms of like “premature” and “final decision has yet to be made” presupposes that the subject was a very active issue and asked why, as well as the reason for the government giving consideration to such an extraordinary endowment to Cambridge University, Mustapha said that this was part of the Ministry’s “smart partnership” with foreign universities to achieve excellence in tertiary education.Woh... now, that's definitely a case for "no smoke without fire".
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