PUTRAJAYA, 7 June 2018:
Public universities nationwide are now free to organise academic programmes such as debate, forum and intellectual discourse – as is being practised by leading universities in the world, says Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik.
He said the directive came into effect immediately and that all administrators of higher learning institutions are required to adhere to the instruction – in order to turn universities into the gold mine of knowledge.
“I urge vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors of student affairs to comply with this directive and ensure there will be no restriction to such programmes after this.
“Such a matter needs to be synchronised with all universities, in which the ministry will monitor on its compliance.”
As someone who had been barred from participating in such programmes before, Maszlee said the ministry’s decision is to inspire students who wanted to see the university free of any restriction – especially in intellectual sharing.
In order to create a knowledge-friendly environment, the ministry would also instruct the universities not to place a barrier gate at the main entrances – as being practised all this while, he said.
In the meantime, Maszlee said the ministry would give authority to principals, headmasters and teachers to solve the heavy schoolbag issue.
“Granting such powers to teachers in resolving the issue can be regarded as a gift to parents and students although the ministry has set up a committee to address that,”
Meanwhile, Maszlee said ‘tahfiz’ (Quran memorisation) students would be exposed to entrepreneurial knowledge to serve as an added value for them once they had completed their studies.
“We cannot deny that most of the tahfiz students would become ‘imam’ and the like, but they should also be given the added value so that they can contribute to society and nation.”
Meanwhile, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) has strengthened its ranking by achieving the position of being in the top 202 universities in the world in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2018/2019 today.
Vice-chancellor Prof Datin Paduka Dr Aini Ideris said UPM made a jump of 27 rungs as compared to its 229th position in the previous year, namely, rising in five consecutive years since the 2013 ranking.
“What is exciting about UPM is that we are on the right track of the UPM Strategic Plan 2014-2020 target which is to achieve a position among the world’s top 200 universities by 2020. Improving the quality of curriculum and student marketability can enhance the network and reputation of UPM students with industry and potential employers as it is assessed in the Employer Reputation indicator.
“UPM’s efforts to improve some indicators will be doubled such as strategies to increase the number of international lecturers and improve academic and student quality,” she said in a statement today.
She said UPM also ranked among the top 20% of the world’s best universities from 1,233 universities rated by QS and earned the highest score for the International Student indicator, as well as the rise in scores in three other indicators namely, Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Student Faculty and International Faculty.
In addition, she said, UPM also reinforced the fundamental aspects, especially the quality of academic research and the number of publications in renowned journals.
In keeping with the UPM vision to become an internationally reputable university, Aini said the QS ranking helped to assess the level of UPM visibility, especially in the areas of teaching, learning, research and innovation.
The QS World University Rankings 2018/2019 assessment is based on six indicators, namely Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Student Faculty, Citations per Faculty, International Faculty and International Students.
– Bernama