So much has been said about the importance of meritocracy in the selection of students for the local universities in our common desire to see an improved educational standard of our tertiary institutions. Thanks to Education Minister Musa Mohamed who opened up the Pandora's box.

If education involves the teacher and the taught, then we must also say something about academicians who work in the so-called ivory towers. It is said that if there's a decline of standards in the local universities, some of the academic staff are also to blame.

One of the factors is selection of these academicians. We hear of certain academicians who got selected are ones whose academic standing is dubious. And these academicians, after realising the 'risk' of being mediocre in a place where academic excellence should be the only standard, would then resort to 'ethnic cover' and at the same time scramble for some administrative positions in their desperate urge to be relevant. (I'm not talking about a number of Malay academicians only, but this also applies to a certain degree, to other ethnic groups.)

Mind you, there are a few cases of these administrative types who either seldom write for academic journals or don't write at all! Also, you wouldn't catch them dead presenting an academic paper in a conference.

But clambering for administrative posts, unfortunately, is not only the obsession of some of those who are academically mediocre. The relatively brighter ones, too, especially the younger ones, seem to have fallen into this trap. A number of these academicians are too much in a hurry to go up the ladder in the universities. They see this administrative position, and not academic research and writing, as the shortest and easiest route to promotion. This is a misuse of scare resources in our society.

So essentially what you get is a bunch of academicians who are academically questionable or weak running a department or faculty. In certain cases, they feel so threatened by others who have made a name in the academic world that they become autocratic and view valid criticisms regarding academic matters as a personal attack on them. And these are some of the people who are assigned the role to make an annual assessment of the academic performance of all academicians, including the brighter and critical ones in a department or faculty.

Tell me, is this the kind of environment that you want your kids to be in, an environment that doesn't encourage debate and discussion? A place where a number of these heads of departments become pliant and mere yes-men to the authorities? Or is this what the authorities in the universities and the Education Ministry really want? Wouldn't it be easier to rule over a group of conformist and uncritical academicians?

I feel that this is one of the factors that has maligned our local universities, and as long as this problem is not addressed, you would still get egg-heads pretending to be intelligent enough to lead our kids in the universities. And they will continue to talk about the importance of academic excellence until the cows come home.

I hope that when the authorities seriously discuss the issue of meritocracy in our national education, they will also consider this point about mediocrity among some academicians.