Much has been written about the slide of rankings of Universiti Malaya and USM recently, with the opposition calling for urgent review of governance of local universities. While I do not have first-hand experience of the governance problems in universities in Malaysia, I wish to point out that Malaysia will have a very hard time in attracting high-caliber academics which could pull up the rankings of these universities.

A slide in ranking can be hard to swallow, but do note that the criteria for ranking differs from one publication to another, and many good state universities in the US are not even included in the world's top 200 as ranked by The Times Higher Education Supplement. Yes, by all means conduct a review to bring up the quality of our local universities.

While critics may be right on certain governance problems, I believe a much larger problem lies underneath, and that is the problem of pay. Our country has limited resources and may not have the financial resources to attract brilliant academics. They are after all driven by a common-sense motivation to do well in life financially.

A look at the pay structure of professors in Singapore, Hong Kong, US and Europe clearly shows that good quality professors in local universities are seriously underpaid. A professor in Hong Kong could earn more than RM500,000 (more than HK$1 million) per year, much more than the prime minister of Malaysia (an equally underpaid civil servant) who has much greater responsibilities in looking after the welfare of more than 25 million Malaysians.

A vice- chancellor (VC) or university president in Hong Kong could earn a few more million HK$ than a VC at a local university. The market determines their pay based on their expertise in their respective fields. They can get this kind of pay or more at another institution.

Brilliant academics in Malaysia (and our PM) have to live with the current pay structure in Malaysia. They are already working very hard given the limited resources that our country has. A review of the governance problems has to include the problem of pay. I believe this will be hard to mitigate given the resources of our country.

A possible solution is to get the private sector to fund professorships in local universities so as to attract brilliant academics to come to Malaysia, and bring up the quality and standing of our universities in the world. That kind of funding will not be small.

Other ways include allowing professors in local universities to provide consulting services for engineering corporations, etc, offering them more flexible hours so that they could perhaps work on research projects with private companies, etc. In some universities abroad, the basic pay is low, but professors are allowed more flexible hours to work with private companies.

We know that our present government does not have the financial resources to pay a million ringgit or more for a VC or a professor. It is a fact that while we hasten to be a knowledge economy with brilliant researchers and professors, our pay structure has not kept pace.

The continuous slide in rankings can be partly explained by the pay problem. There is an urgent need to include pay as part of a review of our local universities and improve the working environment to attract brilliant foreigners and Malaysians (including Malays, Chinese and Indians) living abroad to come to Malaysia.