The top 200 spots in the influential Times Higher Education (THE) annual ranking remain elusive for Malaysian universities, which yet again find themselves out of the coveted list this year.

                                                           

This, despite National University Singapore (NUS) moving into the top 25 universities in the world, joining Tokyo University as the only two Asian universities to make the cut.

 

This is a double blow for Malaysia, which last June was bumped off THE’s top 100 Asian universities ranking. NUS was ranked second in that list.

 

Malaysia’s failure to come close to the list of world’s top 200 universities goes against regional trends, with Asian universities showing marked improvement.

 

“It was a strong year for Asia. There are now 24 universities from the Asian continent in the top 200,” THE World University Rankings editor Phil Baty said in a press statement on the latest ranking released today.

 

Baty also noted the “extraordinary rise” of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, which jumped from 76th to 61st.

 

Other Asian universities in the top 100 include Seoul National University (50), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (52), Peking University (48), Tsinghua University (49), University of Hong Kong (43) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (51).

 

A bloody nose for Muhyiddin

 

In response, DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang said this is yet another blow to Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s claim that Malaysia has one of the best education systems in the world. 

 

“Muhyiddin’s boast... was given a bloody nose by the report that Malaysian universities again failed to make the cut this year... while NUS, which shared the same beginnings with Universiti Malaya, leapt into the top 25 universities list,” Lim said in statement.

 

According to Lim, the failure is clearly on Muhyiddin’s shoulders as he has been education minister for more than five years.

 

As such, the Gelang Patah MP said, Muhyiddin ( centre in photo ) should make a ministerial statement when Parliament resumes on Oct 7 on how he intends to reverse the trend.

 

He said Malaysia’s failure is further compounded by the fact that NUS and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have climbed up the rankings in the last five years.

 

NUS moved from 34th ranking in 2010 to 25th in the world this year, while NTU leaped from number 174 in 2010 to 61 this year.