THE outcome of the Times Higher Education (THE) -- Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2008 is a significant signal for Malaysian universities to undo itself. We failed to join the top 200 list.

Among the new entrants to the top 200 include several universities from Asian countries such as Thailand's Chulalongkorn University and Korea's Pohang University of Science and Technology. The Indian Institutes of Technology in Delhi and Bombay are also included.

Singapore's National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University retain their top 100 positions.

Three Malaysian universities improved their standing, while Accelerated Programme for Excellence (Apex)-status Universiti Sains Malaysia saw a drop in ranking.

University of Malaya moved from 246 last year to 230, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to 250 from 309, and Universiti Pertanian Malaysia was ranked 320, up from 364.

Some Malaysian academics reacted by saying that the world ranking is just a ranking and it is "not everything".

We are not there yet, or should we even dream of being there? After all, if the world ranking is just a world ranking, why bother?

Some of us may want to continuously improve in conforming to the rules of the game.

Some may want to create another (international) ranking system, perhaps more "indigenous and contextualised".

Or perhaps to champion an Asian, Asean, or OIC university ranking. Some may not want to bother.

But it is not the story of ranking per se. We do not have to benchmark against criteria that do not do justice to Malaysia's higher education, if we believe that the goal posts are constantly changing.

Given that the world is broadly divided into two unequal halves - culturally, politically, economically and scientifically we still subscribe to the slogan of internationalisation and globalisation.

Perhaps this is done to benefit from the world's best and to be a global player.

No Malaysian university can afford to isolate and insulate itself from the world because they contradict the government's internationalisation policy.

We have no choice but to play the game. One area in which we can excel is in the production, promotion and distribution of indigenous knowledge to the world.

Unfortunately, we sorely lack the imagination to conceptualise alternative discourses pertaining to local knowledge.

We continue to reproduce knowledge from the dominant intellectual system.

Now in its fifth year, the THE-QS World University Rankings 2008 indicates an increasing acceptance of the importance of the list by the international higher education community and those that employ graduates.

For the 2008 data, there were unprecedented response levels from both the international academic community and employers with more than 6,000 academics, as compared to 5,101 the year before; and 2,339 employers (1,482 in 2007) responding to surveys.

The THE-QS World University Rankings 2008 is based on data gathered in six categories with the following weightage:

• Peer Academic Review -- 40 per cent
• Employer Review -- 10 per cent
• Faculty Student Ratio -- 20 per cent
• Citations Per Faculty -- 20 per cent
• International Faculty -- 5 per cent
• International Students -- 5 per cent

Where do local universities go from here? Do we ignore the accepted benchmark of quality in higher education?

We have already spelt out a strategy in the Apex programme for universities and our poor performance in this year's rankings should not deter us from conferring more tertiary institutions the Apex status.

Our universities have been around for more than 50 years. We have evolved through constant change of emphasis dictated by national, political, economic and corporatist interests.

And along the way, we may have inculcated habits that have derailed us from our ethos as a university and inhibited the development of our most important functions -- teaching, research, publication and advocacy.

Changes to our universities have taken place without much thought and understanding.

There has been a de-emphasis on the scholarly temperament of prospective academics as well as the leadership at all levels -- the appointment of professors, heads of departments, deans and vice chancellors.

It is recruitment and appointment tempered with the breeding of cultural and ideological parochialism and anti-intellectualism.

Graduates with advanced degrees apply for academic appointments because there are vacancies for lecturers and not because they see it as a vocation in scholarship and intellectual advancement.

Was this the situation faced by Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge?

Malaysian universities are devoid of the cultural and intellectual space, much of which is self-induced by the idea of authority.

We have developed a Manichean attitude towards thought, values and ideologies -- an ethos of either good or bad.

Our lecturers are just lecturers, who themselves may be oblivious to international ranking exercises.

Worst, many are just modular-type instructors, where ubiquitous power-points, mostly aesthetically devised to such a virtual state of perfection, dictate their performance in lecture halls.

Completing the syllabus is a time-honoured ritual. Socrates would have been speechless.

Regardless of whether we want to ignore the rankings, we need to change our habits of intellectual craftsmanship and knowledge production.

Human capital is not about the creation and transmission of knowledge, and pleasing industry and government.

It is also about refuting and challenging existing ones and contributing to a better society, government and nation.

My prediction is that the universities in the Anglo-Saxon world will continue to lead.

Let us choose to be obsessed with Harvard.

We have heard cries of creating "a Harvard of the East" in Malaysia simply because Harvard is No. 1.

In the 2008 rankings, Harvard is followed by Yale University and the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford respectively.

Look at it this way.

Although it is the institutional ranking that invariably captures the headlines, we should also be focusing on the five subject groupings, namely the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Life Sciences and Biomedicine, Natural Sciences, and Technology.

What are we good at and where do our universities stand in the subject groupings?

Bear in mind that many of the top universities in the world are excellent in the Arts and Humanities, and History is a highly regarded field.

Harvard, for the fourth year running, excels in the areas of Life Sciences and Biomedicine, Arts and Humanities, and Social Sciences.

And American universities continue to excel across the board taking a minimum of six of the top 10 spots in every subject area including the Natural Sciences and Technology.

We may argue that factors such as wealth, funding structure and global demand make up academic supremacy.

But would funding and its structure be a critical prerequisite for a Malaysian university to excel as some university leaders have constantly voiced?

Should Malaysian universities measure itself faithfully to one ranking system?

Other ranking systems such as the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings are also significant. Different benchmarking systems have their strengths and weaknesses.

What is important is that in order to be ranked in any system, Malaysian universities must go back to basics and understand the philosophy and mission of a tertiary institution.

The top 50 universities on the 2008 list have understood this.

The supremacy of American and British universities thrive exactly on the creation, maintenance and advancement of learning and its applications to humanity.

This year's list also saw a rise in prominence of some Asian universities.

But we cannot ignore the United States and Britain as the Science and Social Science superpowers. They will stay on top for a long time to come.

Regardless of what Malaysian universities and society do (or do not do), we have to play the game of the politics of image.

Harvard, Cambridge and the rest are good at that, because they play the game with their souls.

Professor A. Murad Merican is with the Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Perak. He can be contacted at amurad_noormerican@petronas.com.my