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Media Statement (2)

by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Petaling Jaya , Sunday): Prof Datuk Dr. Hashim Yaacob should resign as University of Malaya Vice Chancellor not only for the shocking 80-place plunge of the nation’s premier university from 89^th to 169^th position in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Ranking for Top 200 Universities 2005, but for his disgusting complacency when he could say that he was “not worried”.

Hashim told The Star:  “I am not worried because we are still within the top 200  and for the first time a Malaysian university has broken into the top 50 in the arts and humanities and the top 100 in the social sciences.”

From Hashim’s reaction, it would appear that there was nothing wrong whatsoever with the University of Malaya – and that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was completely misguided and misinformed to be “very sad” at University of Malaya’s slide in the rankings.

Abdullah had expressed the hope that the University of Malaya will take the necessary action to rectify the drastic  drop in its ranking among the world’s top 200 universities, but from Hashim’s response, clearly there is nothing to “rectify” as he is quite proud of the 169^th placing of the University of Malaya.

If Hashim has his way, he would probably be organizing another series of university celebrations for the  THES World University  Ranking 2005.

It is most shocking and completely unacceptable that the Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya  is the very picture of smug complacency when he should be the most distressed  and ashamed person in the country over the university’s  drastic drop of 80 places in the 2005 Ranking.

Until the seventies, there was no doubt that the University of Malaya was the equal if not superior to universities like Melbourne University, Sydney University, Hong Kong University, and it is a shame to University of Malaya and a national dishonour that the Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya finds it nothing wrong for the university to be regarded internationally to be trailing behind universities like Queensland University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Macquairie University, Adelaide University, University of Western Australia, RMIT University, University of Technology Sydney, La Trobe University, Curtin University of Technology, Queensland University of Technology, Chulalongkorn University, University of Newcastle, University of South Australia and Tasmania University.

Hashim deserves to be sacked as Vice Chancellor of the premier university of the nation for possessing such  “tunnel vision”, completely unfitting a nation committed to the maintenance of “towering institutions” to create “towering personalities”!

 
(30/10/2005)