Private institutions to be rated, says Teo

KUALA LUMPUR: The government will make it mandatory for all private institutions of higher learning to be rated.

Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching said the ministry would make it compulsory for private institutions of higher learning to go through the Malaysian Quality Evaluation System for Private Colleges (MyQuest) and Rating System for Malaysian Education (Setara) rating systems, which were set up last year.

She said MyQuest was established to rate private colleges, while Setara measured the achievements of universities and university colleges.

“What we are looking into is to make it mandatory for private institutions of higher learning and public institutions of higher learning to participate in either Setara or MyQuest so that we can have a more comprehensive rating.

“It would make it easier for (prospective) students to decide which institutions of higher learning to further their studies at,” Teo said at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

She said this in reply to a supplementary question from Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali (Pakatan Harapan-Bagan Serai) on how the government could measure the quality of newer private institutions of higher learning.

Teo said around 206 private institutions had been taking part in MyQuest and 71 universities and university colleges took part in Setara since last year.

Earlier, in a reply to the main question from Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh (Barisan Nasional-Besut) over the global ranking of Malaysia’s institutions of higher learning and how the achievement was measured, she said the QS World University Rankings 2019 showed that Universiti Malaya’s ranking had risen from 114 to 87.

She said Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia rose from 230 to 184, Universiti Putra Malaysia from 229 to 202 and Universiti Sains Malaysia from 264 to 207.