From malaysiakini,

UM defends slide in university rankings Nov 2, 05 10:06am The country's oldest and most prestigious university has defended its poor performance after it slid 80 places in a respected ranking of the world's top-200 institutions. The Universiti Malaya's Vice Chancellor Hashim Yaakob insisted its performance had improved despite coming in at 169 on The Times Higher World University Rankings, a drop from 89 the year before. "Actually, UM is better this year as compared to last year as we are graded as excellent in three out of the five university categories in the survey," he was quoted as saying by the state Bernama news agency late Monday. Hashim said that UM, which was founded in 1949, ranked among the best 100 universities in the categories of arts and humanities, social sciences, biomedicine, science and technology. He also blamed UM's poor showing on increased competition with more universities surveyed for the ranking this year, as well as a new evaluation category which rated universities on the employability of graduates. "In the new category, they asked employers to list the universities with students who are employable. We do not know which employers they approached," he said. cont...

The vice chancellor is defending a sinking ship. It is riddled with unfair bureaucratic practices, flawed policies, incompetent management and uninspiring academicians cum administrators. Being contend with a slide in rankings and rationalising it as an improvement in performance displays the delusions of grandeur that our universities as suffering from. Blaming increased competition as the reasons for this slide in rankings only highlights the lack of quality in UM in a globalised setting.

60,000 grads unemployed Annie Freeda Cruez KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 2: Nearly 60,000 Malaysian graduates are unemployed. A survey on the jobless, carried out for the first time in the country, also revealed the profile of the unemployed graduate: Female, Malay, from a public university majoring in business studies or information technology, from a poor background, and educated with a study loan from the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN). cont...

No surprises here. It is time public univerisities acknowledge the weaknesses there are present and make genuine attempts at improving the situation. Relying on past glories will only depreciate the value of degrees from our local universities. The VC perhaps should be the first to recognise his shortfalls rather than justify an obvious flaw in his managerial style.