KUALA LUMPUR: The Perikatan Nasional shadow cabinet member for higher education has called for fairer and more nationally-focused performance assessment methods for public universities, instead of relying solely on rankings.
Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar (PN-Kemaman) said the current pursuit of rankings incurs significant costs and needs to align with the orientation of the universities.
"As a former lecturer and faculty management member, I am concerned about the public universities in our country, and this relates to the viral issue of university rankings.
"The overly serious pursuit of rankings, leading to using consultants or external companies, is counterproductive.
"This is where unfair weighting is used for assessment, and considerable funds are spent on preparing reports and surveys," he said during the motion of thanks on the royal address in the Dewan Rakyat.
Samsuri said the government needs to recognise public universities' distinct orientations and roles compared to private universities.
"The assessment method should consider the socio-economic conditions and societal structure of a country where the ranking process is conducted.
"In addition, certain indicators used in the ranking system do not have equal weightage between developed and developing countries."
Samsuri suggested that besides the ranking system, the government might consider introducing a rating assessment with parameters determined by them.
"It must be driven by making the national agenda the central axis in enhancing the quality of higher education institutions in Malaysia.
"Among other things, it can create an index that all higher education institutionsin the country must comply with, and it must be more user-friendly, especially for university members, without involving significant financial implications."
