Malaysian higher educational institution have failed to make it to the Top 200 in global university rankings for the second year in a row.

Both Universiti Malaya (UM) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) are no-show in this year's World University Rankings, released today by the Times Higher Education-QS.

The last time both universities appeared on the list was in 2006 when UKM was ranked 185 - the only occasion that it had made it to the chart - while UM was at the bottom of the pile at No 192.

university convocation 090507 03 UM, once the nation's premier university, was among the world’s top 100 higher educational institutions in 2004 when it was ranked 89th.

It plunged to 169th a year later, and fell even further in 2006 before disappearing completely from the list.

Meanwhile, Universiti Sains Malaysia, which was ranked 111th in 2005, crashed out of the list in subsequent years.

In this year’s rankings, Harvard University tops the list for the fifth consecutive year.

Second place goes to Yale, followed by Cambridge and Oxford. The two British institutions were joint second last year.

The top Asian university is Australian National University at No 16, followed by Tokyo University (19), Kyoto University (25), University of Hong Kong (26) and National University of Singapore (30).

Varsities gone into ‘black hole’

In an immediate reaction today, opposition leader Lim Kit Siang did not mince his words in lamenting that Malaysian institutions have fallen into the "black hole of international university competitiveness stakes”.

“Malaysians are not asking our public universities to scale new heights never achieved before - but to restore the academic eminence, standards, excellence and quality which Universiti Malaya had enjoyed in the 60s and even the 70s.

“If Australia can have seven universities among the top 100 universities, Japan four, Hong Kong three, Singapore two, China two and South Korea two, why can't Malaysia have at least one or two among the Top 100?” said Lim in a statement today.

“National University of Singapore is ranked No 30, while Nanyang Technological University of Singapore No 77. What must be more mortifying is Thailand's Chulalongkorn University is ranked No 166.”

Lim said that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had at Universiti Malaya’s 2005 centennial celebrations thrown the challenge to the university to raise its then 89th ranking to 50 by 2020.

Instead, UM went into a free fall.

“Clearly, Najib and government leaders did not realise, or know, that the rot in academic excellence and quality of the nation's premier university had become so deep and septic...,” said Lim.

“It is most ridiculous for instance that Universiti Malaya, unranked, refuses to recognise the degrees of Beijing University, ranked No 50, Tsing Hua University, ranked No 56...,” he added.