The myth of university rankings

LETTER | The most recent QS Rankings have just been released. 

Again, we fall back into the same patterns, of edifying such rankings, and celebrating Malaysian public institutions’ placements in them. There is, in fact, no value to such rankings. 

The question is, how is the QS Ranking or any other university ranking an accurate measurement of actual quality? It is akin to assessing the quality of a fruit by the colour of its skin.

There is a bias to it, a modulate power, which is why Western institutions always rank highly because 40 percent of the assessment is "academic reputation" (for the QS Ranking), which leaves most institutions in the shadows. 

It’s a sorry state of affairs, but the reality is that there is an influence in these rankings, most local newspapers and local universities publish these rankings on their websites and social media sites. 

This is simply perpetuating the myth of accuracy in assessment when there is none. The reason for this inaccuracy is that most university rankings use faculty-student ratio, peer review teaching and the like, which would lead to the conclusion that it is a myopic view of what real education is.

These rankings, for the most part, are woefully glamorised. An easy to refer basis of education “quality”, for students seeking for the best standards, however, the truth of the matter is that these rankings are limited in their assessment, as they are based on “research output”. 

This means that all institutions, which want to have a higher place in the rankings, would simply churn out research much like factories produce goods. The aim of education, which is to educate and learn, is lost. Yet, these rankings are trusted and looked at as the gospel truth, and to a degree, almost worshipped.

If one were to depart from these rankings, to look beyond these numbers, who is to say that our local, public institutions are not higher up the ladder when it comes to teaching quality, student progression and student development?

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.