The Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions 2007 (Setara)

The Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions 2007 (Setara) has been unleashed. Universities are graded according to 5-star system, based on six domains – academic staff (25%), students' selectivity (10%), research (15%), academic programmes (25%), resources (15%), and management (10%).

The outcome is:-

Excellent - Universiti Malaya

Very Good - UPM, UKM, UiTM, UIA

Good - UTM, USM, UNIMAS, UMS

Satisfactory - UTTHM, UPSI, KUKUM, UMT, UUM, USIM, UMP, UTeM.


While I am not sure what is being reported in the detailed reports, I hope that all the universities would study it in details and make full use of it to improve themselves.


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PUTRAJAYA: Universiti Malaya (UM) is the only public higher education institution to obtain a five-star rating in the Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions 2007 (Setara).

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said UM came out tops in the research university category in the first-ever local rating system.

A total of 17 public universities were rated and placed in three categories – research, broad-based and specialised.

International Islamic University Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Mara both scored four stars each in the broad-based category, while Universiti Teknologi Malaysia was the only one to receive a three-star rating for specialised universities. No university earned the highest rating – six stars.

“The purpose of Setara is to enable universities to measure their quality and see where they stand in relation to one another,” Mohamed Khaled told a press conference yesterday.

Commenting on the universities' performance, Mohamed Khaled said there was still a lot of room for improvement. However, he added that by knowing their strengths and weaknesses, universities could strive to continuously improve in quality and ultimately, their position in the world rankings.

“We wanted to come up with our own system. Setara is more comprehensive compared to others, which are based more on perception and include things like peer review and employers' perception,'' said Mohamed Khaled referring to the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Rankings.

Setara involves a quantitative survey where data collected is analysed according to six domains – academic staff (25%), students' selectivity (10%), research (15%), academic programmes (25%), resources (15%), and management (10%).

The survey will be carried out once every two years and private higher education institutions may also be included in future.

Last year, the ministry released the results of an academic reputation survey where Universiti Sains Malaysia was named the best overall university.

At the event, Mohamed Khaled also announced that five public and two private higher education institutions had submitted proposals under the accelerated programme for excellence or apex university.

The ministry plans to identify one or two Malaysian institutions as apex universities, which have the greatest potential of being recognised as world class by 2010.

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