The Universiti Malaya Students Association (PMUM) has slammed DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang for criticising Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's move to opt out of the Times Higher Education (THE) university ranking.

 

PMUM president Fahmi Zainol said instead, the two universities deserve praise for their move, pointing out that the institutions have been plagued with problems for being too focussed on rankings.

 

"The fact is, quality education is not dependent on only rankings," he said in a statement today.

 

Fahmi ( right ) said in the pursuit of meeting criteria in the university ranking system, lecturers have been forced to produce journal publications at the expense of lecturing.

 

"Lecturers have lost focus on whether to teach students or pursue ranking criteria," he said.

 

Furthermore, he said university funds have also been misdirected to fulfilling ranking criteria instead of other uses such as scholarships.

 

This, he said, is on top of the reduction of government funding for public varsities and the requirement for universities to seek out their own funds.

 

"Universities are turned from a place of knowledge to a factory for profit," he said.

 

Yesterday, Lim urged Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to instruct the UM and UKM not to boycott the THE rankings if the country was serious about improving the quality of education.