KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 (Bernama) — University of Malaya’s (UM) ranking improved to 230th position in this year’s The Times Higher Education (THE)- Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Ranking from 246th place previously.

Its Acting Vice-Chancellor Datuk Dr Muhamad Rasat Muhamad said the position showed that UM’s strategic plan which was implemented two years ago under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Datuk Rafiah Salim and the excellent support of the staff was bearing fruit.

Muhamad Rasat in a statement here today said the university fully supported the Ministry of Higher Education in realising the national aspiration of having one or more of Malaysia’s universities in the top 200 of the THE ranking by 2010.

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Announcement
Keputusan MUET Pertengahan Tahun 2008 boleh disemak melalui SMS mulai 16 Julai 2008 dengan menaip MUET <jarak> No. KP Baru dan hantar ke 39003 atau On-line: http://www.mpm.edu.my

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Ministry of Education has released the result for Semakan Tawaran Kursus Perguruan Lepas SPM (KPLSPM) Ambilan Julai 2008 Anjuran Bahagian Pendidikan Guru. All aplicants can now check your application status at MOE website.

What you need to do is to fill up your IC no click “semakan”, so far the system pretty good and fast.

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If this news is real, of course all Malaysian will be benefited by having international qualification at a cheaper price. Newcastle University plans to open their medical campus in Johor by 2011. Eventhough its 3 years from now, but of course all necessary work should be done now.

Anyway, we just wait and see.

KUALA TERENGGANU: The prestigious Newcastle University in Britain plans to open a medical campus in Johor by 2011.

British High Commissioner Boyd McCleary said the campus would be the first international branch campus for Newcastle University while 18 other universities in Britain were interested to have links in Malaysia.

&#147;The medical campus offers several medicine and bio-medical related courses,&#148; he said after calling on Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said at his office in Wisma Darul Iman during his two-day visit to the state.

The Newcastle University Medi-cine Malaysia campus would be located at the Iskandar Region.

On his meeting with Ahmad, Mccleary said it focussed on education and areas of enhancing English proficiency among the locals.

He said the British Council would continue to provide the expertise on the teaching of English in Terengganu schools.

McCleary will also visit the British Petroleum (BP) plant in Kemaman where the company was planning to expand its operation.

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I don’t believe this ! Finally we have our own ranking system for our local universities called Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education Institutions 2007. But only 17 public universities were rated and placed in three categories – research, broad-based and specialised. What happen to the rest of institution, are they good enough to be rated ?

Anyway, read the press statement for details.

Press Statment

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 &amp;lt;I&amp;gt;Times Higher Education Supplement&amp;lt;/I&amp;gt; (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.

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