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Najib: Way govt counts equity holding no secret

"If there are those who are still sceptical, we can reveal the methodology applied."

Najib was asked to comment on the request by Gerakan president Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik on Saturday that the government disclose how it arrived at its percentage of Bumiputera equity ownership.

Dr Lim said transparency on the matter would not give room for any party to question the government’s findings.

 Najib disagreed with Dr Lim’s statement.

"What he said seems to imply that we are not transparent. We conduct our research based on an objective analysis.

"The government is transparent. There should not be any inferences that we are not," he said.

When it was pointed out that the request had come from a BN component party, Najib said its origin was irrelevant.

"It doesn’t matter who made the statement. We want to ensure that whatever figure we use is for the whole country and that it is not a modified figure in the interests of any community.

"We can disclose the method applied," he said yesterday after launching the Transport Ministry’s Deepavali and Hari Raya Road Safety Campaign.

Dr Lim’s request is the latest in the debate on the Bumiputera corporate ownership.

The issue arose when the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) stated that Bumiputera equity ownership may be as high as 45 per cent.

The government questioned the findings and said its more exhaustive study showed that Bumiputera corporate ownership was at 18.9 per cent.

On the appointment of South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon as the new United Nations secretary-general, Najib hoped that Ban would ensure peace and prosperity in Asia.

"As an Asian, he should understand the aspirations of the Asian region, the fastest-growing region in the world. There are some very daunting issues confronting him and we hope he’s up to the task with his vast experience.

"Malaysia welcomes his appointment and will give our fullest co-operation," he added.

Should we be rankled by varsity rankings?

Q: Are ranking surveys truly able to reflect the actual performance of a university?

A: It is difficult to determine which university is good based on such an exercise. In the past, a good university is one which invented ideas. If it did not do that, then it was no better than a polytechnic.

But ranking exercises are based on many other factors — intellectual achievements, ratio of staff to student, the number of foreign students and the employability of graduates.

Q: How much credence should we give to the Times Higher Education Supplement survey?

A: There are several weaknesses in the survey. One is that those who conduct the ranking exercise cannot read academic writings in other languages.

Q: But is it true Universiti Malaya’s standards have dropped?

A: According to the survey, UM’s performance was based on several factors, one of which is the employability of its graduates.

This is a very unreliable way of measuring a university. People are employed for a variety of reasons.

In Malaysia, it is who you know. So to that extent, the survey should be taken with a pinch of salt. But it is true that UM is no longer as actively contributing to knowledge as it used to. Not many scholars are willing to take up Western scholars in debate. In those days, even the tutors did it.

Q: It has been said public universities in Malaysia are no longer what they were. What contributed to this general drop in standards?

A: There is this growing misunderstanding of what a university is all about. There is now overemphasis on the need for graduates to get jobs. We are not encouraging them to be self-employed.

Universities are asked to produce employable graduates, not those who can stand on their own feet or make critical decisions. If this is the case, we will not be able to compete with Western countries.

Over the years, we have also adopted a different philosophy. Now there is a tendency not to fail a student. If we produce graduates who are half-educated, what will they be able to do outside?

In the early days of UM, only about 25 per cent of students would pass, now it is almost 100 per cent. Of the 30 students who made up the first batch of UM’s engineering course, only five passed.

Q: The internationally recognised measure of excellence is research output and publications by academics. How are Malaysian academics faring?

A: It is dangerous to go by volume. It is better to go by substance and quality. If an academic merely quoted other people, then he has contributed nothing. He must be able to engage other scholars in debate.

If he merely takes quotes from other people, then he has no substance. If a professor quotes other people, then he is not much of a professor.

There is also a tendency among Asian scholars as a whole to ape the West. They are influenced by American scholarship and tend to use methods used by American scholars. Their articles are punctuated with jargon originating from the United States.

Q: It has also been said that our universities should embark on aggressive branding exercises to enhance their visibility in the international arena.

A: No, universities must come up with publications and contribute towards knowledge.

Branding is very American, like being a salesman. I don’t think that is what universities ought to do.

People say universities should learn from the industries. It used to be the other way around.

Q: Should we rank our own universities?

A: We have a tendency of using ISO to measure intellectual development. This is crazy. Ideas are abstract, not quantifiable or measurable.

We also cannot say that an academic who has published 10 articles is better than one who has published four. The four articles could be original and have interesting ideas while the 10 may have been re-hashed.

 Tan Sri Murad Mohd Noor

Q: Are ranking surveys able to reflect the actual performance of a university?

A: Such exercises do give the people an idea of how universities are performing. But it is also important for us to look at the criteria used to rank the universities.

For us, our public universities need to fulfil a national agenda. This factor is not taken into account in the ranking exercise.

Q: How much credence should we give to the Times Higher Education Supplement survey?

A: The survey is quite respectable. We can accept their rankings as there are no others. This is just as good as any.

Q: Should we rank our own universities?

A: Yes. Why don’t we have a local ranking system? Then we can have our own criteria.

And we can compare our own rankings with a global one. If UM comes up tops in our rankings, but does not do well in the international rankings, then something is wrong.

But we should not just focus on rankings. We must also look at what is going on outside the university.

What graduates do after they leave university is more important. If they are not employable, then it does not matter if their universities enjoy top rankings.

Q: What should be taken into consideration in our own ranking exercise?

A: Most important will be the teaching facilities, the quality of lecturers and their selection. We should also look at the student-lecturer ratio.

If there are too many students, our lecturers will have no time to do anything else but teach. What is also important are facilities available for self-study.

The universities must produce graduates who can react to the social beat of the country, graduates who can contribute, not bookworms.

Our academics can work on the criteria. The exercise need not be conducted every year, maybe once in three years. Then we will not be dependent on international surveys and waste time arguing over them.

We have to take cognisance of them (international surveys), otherwise we will be isolating ourselves.

But if we take it too seriously, the entire point of such surveys will be lost. They are merely to serve as a guide.

Q: It has been said that opening up too many universities has contributed to a decline in the standards of Malaysian public universities. Too many students, not enough lecturers, and scholarship is being relegated to the back burner as the system becomes increasingly regulated.

A: Yes, this is all true. We can create universities but we can’t produce lecturers overnight.

Then there is the pinching of lecturers. The pool of lecturers is the same and spread rather thinly. We need to look at this seriously.

When there are too many students and not enough lecturers, the lecturers will have very little time to do research and write. We have to figure out the correct ratio.

Q: Why did UM slide in the recent survey?

A: I thought UM was doing very well. But if it is true that standards have declined, it is a matter of concern and we should find out why.

UM plans revamp to improve ranking

The Star, Monday October 16, 2006

KUALA LUMPUR: Lowering its first degree intake from 20,000 to 15,000 students and increasing its Masters and Doctorate intake from 9,000 to 15,000. 

These are some changes Universiti Malaya will introduce in its enrolment policy from January next year to improve its ranking under The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). 

“We will also put in efforts to improve the mastering of other languages, particularly English, among the students,” said UM Student Affairs and Alumni deputy vice-chancellor Datuk Dr Razali Agus. 

He was officiating at the Independence Appreciation Night organised by the Universiti Malaya Islamic Graduates Association on Saturday.  

Recently, THES ranked the university at 192nd placing. It was at 169th placing a year ago. 

Dr Razali said the large intake of first degree students, the lower intake for Masters and PhDs, and poor proficiency in English were the main factors in the lower ranking. 

In addition, the hiring of UM’s graduates by employers and multinational corporations was a crucial factor in the ranking. 

Undergraduates were not called for interviews when their cumulative grade point average (CGPA) results were below 3.0. 

Dr Razali said to date, only 38% of UM students were scoring a CGPA above 3.0. 

As such, he hoped the students would be ready to face the challenge and help each other to improve their grade to a level demanded by employers. – Bernama  

Government prepared to show how it calculated bumi equity share

By IZATUN SHARI

newsdesk@thestar.com.my 

The Star, Monday October 16, 2006

KUALA LUMPUR: The Government is prepared to reveal the methodology and data used to calculate the 18.9% equity ownership by bumiputras, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said yesterday. 

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Government’s figure on bumiputra equity share was based on detailed and objective studies. 

“The statistics are not modified for the interest of any community. If it is necessary and there are doubts, we will release the data,” he said. 

Najib said there should not be any cynical remarks implying that the Government was not transparent. 

“The statement gives a picture as though the Government is not transparent. We carried out the study based on an objective assessment,” he told reporters at the launch of a road safety campaign here.  

Gerakan president Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik had said that while the party stood by the Government’s figures, it wanted the public to know how the figure was arrived at. 

The issue of bumiputra equity share came up when the Centre for Public Policy Studies of the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) published a study that showed bumiputra equity ownership in public-listed companies could be as high as 45%.  

Asli later retracted the report, saying the study was based on faulty assumptions.  

Among the questions which had been asked over the methodology was whether government-linked companies should be included in the calculation. Another was whether the shares were calculated at par or market value. 

Umno vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said it was a good idea for the Government to reveal the methodology. 

“As much as this has been accepted as the official formula, many may be unaware of it,” he said, adding that he did not think the Government wanted to hide anything. 

Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam, who is also an Umno vice-president, said the bumiputra’s 18.9% equity share was already stated in the Ninth Malaysia Plan.  

He said he would support any move by the Government to reveal how the statistics was reached. 

Mohd Ali, who is also Malacca Chief Minister, said companies like Tenaga Nasional Bhd and Petronas, which served all Malaysians, should not be regarded as bumiputra-owned companies in any calculation. 

Gerakan central committee member Datuk Toh Kin Woon, who had been speaking out on the issue, said the public would welcome the suggestion to release the methodology. 

“People generally want the Government to be more transparent and open about the computation used in obtaining the figure,” he said. 

He hoped that the Economic Planning Unit and other bodies would look positively at the methodology used in Asli’s study.  

MCA Youth chief Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said official statistics should be made accessible to every one so that they could be used for research. 

He said as long as the Government was transparent, confusion could be avoided.