Ministers must be mindful of the principle of collective responsibility and  speak up in Cabinet next  Wednesday  on Malaysia’s prolonged and worsening  crisis of higher education highlighted by 2005 World Top 200 Universities Ranking

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Media Statement

by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Saturday): All Ministers must be mindful of the principle of collective responsibility and speak up in the   Cabinet next  Wednesday  on Malaysia’s prolonged and worsening  crisis of higher education highlighted by Times Higher Education Supplement (THES)  World University  Ranking 2005 on the Top 200 Universities, which saw the nation’s premier university, University of Malaya, plunging 80 places from 89th to 169th position while Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) fell more than 89 places from 111^th position  and was knocked out of the Top 200 Universities bracket altogether.

I hope there will be more than a couple of Ministers who have sufficient love for the nation and conscious of the fundamental principle of collective ministerial responsibility to speak up at the Cabinet meeting to reflect the almost unanimous non-partisan views of academicians, students and the civil society that neither Universiti Malaya nor the country can afford to have a Vice Chancellor who had reacted with unabashed glee to the international “fall from  grace” of UM.

The Cabinet next Wednesday should be the first official forum to censure the UM Vice Chancellor Professor Datuk Dr. Hashim Yaacob for his public pronouncement that he is  not only “not worried” but feels  “great happiness”  at the THES World University Ranking 2005 for UM.

When the UM VC is “not worried” and even feels “great happiness” at the 80-place drop of the nation’s premier university in the Top 200 Universities ranking, then  it is time for the Cabinet, Parliament and the country to be “very worried” and very  unhappy at having a completely unfit, unsuitable and even unqualified person to lead UM.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had declared in the past two years that CEOs of GLCs (government-linked companies) and heads of government corporations and institutions are required to operate under a new performance-based culture and milieu and to  be regularly  benchmarked  against key performance indicators (KPI).

The VCs of the public universities in the country should be no exception of being required to operate in a performance-based environment  There is no doubt that under any performance-based test, however low the pass mark, Hashim would have failed miserably  any PKI examination.  In fact, if Hashim had been a CEO of a GLC in a truly performance-based culture, he would have been sacked long ago!

If Cabinet next Wednesday is not prepared to perform the national service to end the rot in excellence, quality and standards in the public universities, then Parliament must address this issue as a matter  of foremost  priority  when it reconvenes on November 14 as higher education excellence and quality hold the key to Malaysia’s prosperity and success to achieve Vision 2020 to become a fully-developed nation in the era of knowledge-economy, information society and globalization.

            
(05/11/2005)