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With regards to the to the debate on higher education, there may be some truth to the claim that the undergraduate teachings standards in Universiti Malaya are high. However it is also my pleasure to share with its academics some issues which I thought have been overlooked and could possibly hold answers as to why UM and other universities are not meeting public expectations.

I personally do not think that the recent public outcry regarding local universities standards is baseless. First, it needs to be made clear as to why UM, USM and other public universities are losing out to those universities ranked in the world's top 20.

Today's higher education needs and challenges are indeed very different compared to decades ago. Quality research for one makes one of the biggest differences. Being a nanotechnology researcher (based in Sydney), I realise that universities in Malaysia rarely (if at all) publish their work in renowned international journals.

I am not referring to regional publications or conferences which are poorly regarded by the research communities, but rather top journals such as Science and Nature or their equivalents. These two journals are the leading science publications in the world and only original and top quality cutting-edge researches are accepted for publication.

If quality of research is measured by the number of publications in such journals, then it is a very sad fact that I very seldom come across any publications form a Malaysian university. Unsurprisingly, UM scored a dismal 0 out of 400 in terms of citations, according to the Times Higher Education Ranking .

When I browse through the website of some local academics, it strikes me almost immediately that some of these academics may have published in quality journals while they were studying overseas.

Unfortunately only trivial conference papers and regional publications were produced when they assumed academic positions in local universities. Local universities are equipped with facilities of international standards, so why are the researches not in line with this?

UM academics may also argue that they collected a handful of medals at Geneva's Exhibition on Invention and Innovation. But the general public in Malaysia may not be aware that some exhibitions are regarded by many top science researchers as trivial and not worth participating in.

I am not pointing all these out to undermine research efforts in Malaysia, but rather to inform the public where we stand in terms of research and why we fare poorly in world university rankings.

I sincerely hope that local academics would start to reflect on themselves and be more constructive when handling opinions from the public.

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