The question that nobody (at least in the government) wants to ask is why none of our existing public universities are not world-class. Merging several mediocre universities into one will just result in one massive, mediocre university.

For starters, no one in the government wants to even consider why Malaysian universities rank abysmally low in rankings of universities in the Asia-Pacific region. We are shamed by any comparison, for example, to the two major universities in Singapore, which are in the top 10 or so of most Asia-Pacific rankings.

Why is this? Simply because the Singapore government, like in all things, takes the matter of tertiary education extremely seriously. Singapore takes any and every chance it gets to show itself as several steps ahead of the hoi polloi in the region; indeed it has ambitions to be the academic hub of the the region and has succeeded in attracting several world-class universities to set up in the republic.

In Malaysia, tertiary education is treated by the government as an after-thought, with every aspect of university administration coloured and tainted by the skewed policies of affirmative action. The politicisation of the student body is of more concern to the authorities than academic standards and the quality of the student population. Which is symptomatic of the deeper malaise in the entire Malaysian educational system.

Ask yourself a simple question: does the government value local talent? Has anyone ever tracked the top performers each year in the SPM and STPM examinations, for instance, and see where they go for further studies? How many of these top students are "lost" every year in the brain drain to Singapore, Australia, Britain and the US? Has the government identified the top Malaysian students in world-class universities overseas and tried to woo them back to Malaysia? Is there even a department in the Education Ministry that looks into these matters?

If we can't get even the basics right, why talk of setting up world-class universities in Malaysia? We'd be better off muddling along in happy mediocrity while the rest of the world (read: China and India for starters) passes by in the fast lane. But then, such issues never bothered our politicians, did they?