2008年4月4日星期五

马大排名猛挫 潘俭伟建议公开搜校长

转载自《独立新闻在线》:

【本刊记者撰述】马来亚大学校长拉菲雅沙林(Rafiah Salim)马来亚大学校长拉菲雅沙林两年任内成绩乏善可陈,可是马来亚大学的世界排名持续下滑,八打灵再也北区候任国会议员潘俭伟要新任高教部长卡立诺丁搜纳人才,取代任期即将届满的拉菲雅!

八打灵北区候任国会议员兼行动党秘书长经济顾问潘俭伟发表文告,要求高教部部长卡立诺丁(Khaled Nordin)履行高教部部长的首要职责,从世界各地搜纳人才取代即将在这个月底任期届满的马来亚大学校长拉菲雅沙林(Rafiah Salim)。

潘俭伟指出,拉菲雅沙林在两年前被委派为马来西亚首要大学马来亚大学校长,以取代失宠的前任马大校长哈欣耶谷(Hashim Yaakob),以扭转马大排名不断下滑的趋势,而其任期将在这个月底届满。

这名政坛新贵说:“无可否认她其实较前任校长的素质好一些,迄今为止,拉菲雅沙林的表现算是平庸无奇。”

他认为,拉菲雅沙林合约期满,提供高教部部长宝贵的机会,执行必要改革,为马来西亚建设更美好未来。为此,他建议卡立诺丁大刀阔斧改革,以公开应征的方式招揽世界各地的人才,取代拉菲雅。

潘俭伟在文告中列举拉菲雅沙林在任内的“表现”:

(一)马来亚大学继续在时代高等教育增刊(Times Higher Education Supplement,THES)的大学排名滑落,从她接任前的2005年的169名滑落至2006年的192名,再跌至2007年的第245名。马来亚大学还是无法在上海交通大学列出的世界500强大学中争得一席位。

(二)拉菲雅沙林非旦没有采取必要的措施来改革不断下滑的大学素质,甚至安慰马来西亚人说马来亚大学在回教会议组织(OIC)成员国中排行第13名。

(三)拉菲雅沙林采取行动对付一位大学学术人员,只因为那位学术人员于去年在某报章上投写了一篇抨击校园选举的文章。那位学术人员被马大校长“劝告”莫再撰写任何有关大学的事件。

潘俭伟指出,拉菲雅约束学术人员言论之举,显然是收缩学术殿堂批判思维的空间,也打压了学府中建设性的异议,然而,拉菲雅沙林竟然还在去年8月举办的一场学生论坛中说,国立大学学生有发表意见的自由。

他认为,高教部部长目前当作的是:

(一)成立独立的搜索及评估遴选委员会,确保评估准则乃根据应征者改进相关大学品质与素质的能力,而不是应征者的政治联系或人脉。

(二)遴选委员会的素质必须与时并进,并专注在卓越及高成就的学术指标。我们没有理由拒绝国外“世界级”的学术人员被委任为本地大学的领导阶层,以专业的认知来确认大学学术素质以及以资深的行政经验完善化本地大学。

(三)最后候选人名单不应该由高教部部长提供。我们不应该局限只有公务员或是署理副校长才有资格擢升为大学校长,这也是现有存在的弊病。最后候选人名单应该是将征求优秀候选人广告散布世界各地后,再从应征者的表格中筛选。

潘俭伟说,只有世界级的知识精英及行政人员应该被遴选,并被赋予自主权重组及改革我国大学。“我们必须确保这当中没有太多的束缚或政治的干预,才能提升本地大专学府的学术素质。”

他说:“也只有当我们的学府素质提升后,我们才能够提供最优质的教育给我们的下一代,以避免他们无法发挥本身最大的潜力。相对的,若无法提升马来西亚大专素质,马来西亚在全球的竞争力及进程将会受到阻挠。”

3 条评论:

匿名 说...

This is the correct link:
http://www.merdekareview.com/news.php?n=6428

匿名 说...

I think we can't blame the VC totally as he/she has very limited power. The problem comes from the deadwood Deans/Heads of department and lecturers who are not removable.

Currently, all public universities are parked under JPA. The universities long time ago have already offered permanent positions to mediocre Deans/Heads of department and academics with pension even if they perform poorly.

Under this scenario, there is simply no motivation for them to work hard and excel due to their permanent position. These people are notable to get academic posts in overseas renowned institutions. They will occupy the positions in local universities forever and stop the truly outstanding people from coming in and compete with them.

This is the reason why UM's ranking keeps plunging. The only way to improve this situation is to remove the mediocre Deans/Heads of department and academics and replace them with good ones. But the problem is how to remove them?

匿名 说...

Get better lecturers

THE failure of our public universities to make it into the top 200 of the recently announced THES-QS 2007 university rankings should not surprise the vice-chancellors (VCs) and the policy makers in the Higher Education Ministry.

They knew exactly what was really needed even before the rankings began in 2004 but seemed to have ignored it for nearly two decades.

If the VCs and ministry are really serious about local universities achieving world-class standard, they should consider abolishing the current “seniority of service” system and purge academia of “deadwood professors”.

In reputable western universities, it is not uncommon to find a senior lecturer who has published more than a hundred papers during his many years of service there. This is because he had not obtained sufficient recognition in his field of research due to the lack of citation of his papers.

He may be good at teaching the basic knowledge to undergraduates, but he is simply not good enough to be made a professor.

This academic meritocracy system should be implemented here if the Government is serious about having world-class universities.

Promotion on the basis of the number of papers published should be replaced by that based on the number of citations obtained.

This is to ensure that the academics concerned realise that they have to publish high-quality papers to get their citations, and subsequent promotion.

The ministry can also set some guidelines to standardise the promotion of lecturers to the ranks of associate and full professors.

As an example, the ministry can set the citation number at 50 for lecturers to be eligible to become associate professors. Citations obtained by a lecturer from his fellow lecturers and students should either not be counted or be factored lower than citations from independent sources.

In order to become a full professor, the associate professor must show that he or she is internationally recognised as an expert in his/her field of research and highly cited by other experts and professors in the same field.

This is to prevent a professor from claiming to be an expert in a field in which he/she knows little about.

ZAHAR,

Kuala Lumpur.