3 Malaysian universities among world’s top 500
KUALA LUMPUR: Three Malaysian universities have been ranked among the world’s top 500 higher education institutions in the third edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Graduate Employability Rankings 2018 released yesterday.
Leading the trio is Universiti Malaya (UM), which ranks in the 201 to 250 band.
The other two universities are Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), both in the 301 to 500 level.
QS uses five metrics to calculate this ranking — Employer Reputation; Alumni Outcomes; Partnerships with Employers; EmployerStudent Connections and Graduate Employment Rate.
UM receives the highest graduate employment rate score of any Malaysian university, followed by UKM. The score is based on the proportion of graduates in full or part-time employment within 12 months of graduation.
UM acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Datuk Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud attributed the university’s ranking to its commitment to ensuring that its students graduate with the highest quality of education and become the primary choice of employers.
“Many of our programmes are not only accredited at the national level, but also from prestigious international bodies and are well ranked internationally.
“Graduates also participate in international student mobility programmes, which we hope will give them a better perspective of life in other countries and culture.”
UiTM Vice-Chancellor Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr Hassan Said said UiTM graduates were usually offered employment on completion of industrial training and internship.
UiTM scored under employer/student connections that looked into the employers’ presence in a university’s campus.
QS research director Ben Sowter said the ranking was designed to help prospective students make global comparisons when choosing a university.
Stanford University takes first place, followed by the University of California, Los Angeles and Harvard University.
Cambridge University comes in sixth and Oxford is ranked eighth.