KUALA LUMPUR: Five Malaysian public universities have climbed up the ranks in the 2014 QS World University Rankings.
The latest chart, organised by British company QS Quacquarelli Symonds, showed Universiti Malaya continuing to lead other varsities in the country, coming in at the 151st spot.
This is a massive leap compared with its 167th spot last year.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia moved up 10 spots from number 269 to 259.
The biggest mover, however, was Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, shooting up 61 spots to 294th,
way ahead of its 355th placing last year.
Both Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) moved up the ranks significantly, with USM leaping from 355 to 309, and UPM from 411th place to 376.
Malaysia now has five universities in the top 400, with three being in the top 300.
QS World University Rankings evaluate the universities under six criteria, namely academic reputation, employer reputation, student or faculty ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio and international staff ratio.
“With the exception of International Islamic University Malaysia, all other universities have improved or remained stable in three out of the six ranking indicators.
“USM is the only institution that has improved across all six indicators,” it said.
Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh congratulated
the universities for their achievements.
In his Twitter account, he said he was proud to learn that all five universities in the top 400 were research-based status universities.