Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Of educating and education

Education is a life-long process. Learning is a life-long process. Studying and reading accompany the process. This aspect of life requires a full, dedicated commitment from all parties to ensure its success. Thus education must never be mixed with politics. The problem with our local universities is that there is too much politicking, especially race-based politics. We can never go far with this kind of mentality, no matter how 'advance' you claim you are as it is still a 3rd world mentality.

Recently, the VC of UM Rafiah Salim said that the THES ranking should not be the sole criterion in determining the quality of a university. Yes of course, I would have to agree with her. But let me say out loud that if you put Harvard/MIT in any type of ranking, they are still the top in the world. Can UM be of any good if put into other rankings beside THES? Yeah, we are expecting a little too much here, UM can never ever beat Harvard/MIT like FOREVER. But even if the THES ranking is not the only thing we should look at, it is definitely appalling to see our universities' rankings drop every year. So what has the VC got to say about this?

There is a saying that once you drop into a deep ravine, it's very hard for you to climb back to the top. The more you drop, the harder you need to climb up, of course. So with regards to our local uni rankings, I dread the future. Oh, in fact, I'm dreading now...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Blog Owner...I am so taken by your writing and your thinking. For a student, you are way ahead from the malaysian students that I have known who simply refused to make use of their pea-sized brain (it might expand if they try :)Every waking minutes of my life, I wish for a student like you. Keep on writing. It makes people like me reinstate my faith in the education system..there's hope after all :)Well done!

Anonymous said...

In conclusion, the ranking will keep on dropping if our university is to stick with the quota system they use to accept applicants...reduce the sense of challenge among student who were given great amount of quota.

Anonymous said...

Can UM be of any good if put into other rankings beside THES? Sure, UM and the other malaysian unis sapu all the top rankings for quota-based entry/enrollment based on race

Maverick SM said...

The problem is the denial syndrome. Like Confucious said: If you don't know what you don't know, you will never know. As long as our university V-C believed they are ok, they will be ok-ed.

Arena Green said...

Just like our education ministry who must believe our system is getting better year after year with the increasing number of straight A scorers in public exams, huh?