Research University vs Traditional University

[chenchow]

There has been a lot of talks about the benefits of having research university by academia and those from abroad. However, I personally feel that this notion of having research university has not yet sunk in into the hearts of fellow Malaysians.

What would be more ideal for Malaysia? Would it be a mixture of both kinds of university? What would be the proportion of emphasis on each. How should the emphasis goes essentially?

There has been some discussions in the letters to editor in The Star recently about the moving towards research universities. And there are Malaysians who have written in that stresses that tertiary education should be on teaching and not on researching, and instead the author recommended that full-time researchers are employed.

What is your take on this? I think this is a grey area still in Malaysia. As we are trying to plan our developments, this is an area that needs to be sorted out. What role should our universities be playing?

[vseehua]

more emphasis on research will go a long way in helping malaysia achieve the 202 vision..we have been users of technology for far too long, without creating much ourselves..and one of the most important prerequisite to being a advanced country is the ability to do reasearch and development and the capability to deploy them so that they can be used for the good for all...

as for the letter to the star about universities should only focus on teaching, i say that they are a little bit too short sighted and didn't look at the long term advantage to their child if we do more research..universities have long been the epitome ot knowledge, one of the oldest source of new-discoveries that have made us into what we are today..

imagine our lives now if issac newton didn't "discover" his famous laws of calculus or the three basic law of motion...

[digimushu]

First of all, lets define Traditional University. If we are talking about the "HR factories" we have back home, sorry, its not going to cut it. Our universities seem more keen to create the amount of graduates in targeted areas even though there is clearly no job for it. Our system is certainly not suited for R&D. isn't it obvious? our system is FLAWED. All the way from primary school to secondary school to university. We judge students by how many 'A's they have as opposed to how well they understand the subject matter. if the fundamentals are weak, how do we build upon it?

Think of it this way, some of us are in R&D universities here, where hardwork in both teaching and research will earn you tenure. Tenure is defined as the stage of a professorship where it is *harder* to fire the professor. We, however, choose to let some yo-yo in MOHE decide who the vice-chancellors are and have no such reward system in place to make professors strive harder. Instead, we have a system where the professors and students have no freedom of expression and are just drones. Heck, you can't even dye your hair without annoying the authorities.

Uncompetitive pay+ biased system + no reward for working harder
!=conducive environment for research.

No offense but we have more ability to kick butt than singaporeans, we have bigger land and more resources than them. Yet, they excel in making use of what they have and we are still left behind. Of course, singaporean grads also have their drawbacks, but they are better than us in R&D when you look at the universities. I'll tell you why, because they take in the talent that M'sia freely throws away in the name of affirmative action.

A professorship is an award of scholarly achievement, where you are rewarded after proving yourself to be a capable teacher and researcher. However, in M'sia, the politics in the university are vicious and you could be promoted or ousted anytime depending on kissing the right buttcheek on the right ass.

I say we demand professors teach and do research at the same time. Publish papers! Kill off spoonfeeding system. In the class i am teaching in my university now, i told my students i will not curve the grades. They can all get Fs or they can all get As for all that matters. That kinda put them in the 'oh-shit' mode where they realize they have to swim or sink.

If you do not create competitive, curious and academically driven students instead of a bunch of drones whose sole purpose in life is to make money and die fat, you will not create graduate students who have ability to think or do significant research. Our universities are only interested in making $$$. Nobody wants to fund theoretical work, and we want to be a a center of academic excellence?? I have two words for you, "diploma mill".

Now our government is allocating spots in UM for foreign students even though there is not enough for local students? What are they thinking? on the THES ranking, that criteria only accounts for 5% of the whole grade given to our universities. What they should do is ask the professors to do more research and publish more citable works! whats the catch? OOps, we prefer research that is commercializable and can bring in money. Apparently whoever is funding R&D in M'sia seems to like to count their chickens before they hatch. if everything regarding R&D makes money, then there wont be any room for contribution to sciences, arts and humanities.

I say give the professors and students a free hand in deciding where they want to go. let our universities compete with world class universities in competitions to prevent the jaguh kampung mentality. In the process towards excellence, there is no time for celebrating mediocrity. I apologize if i seem mad in this post but it is the truth. Good night and good luck.

[chenchow]

It is very heartening to read the sharing by digimushu. You have pointed up a lot of good points regarding research university. And I am with you regarding the notion of having research university, as well as improving R&D in Malaysia.

However, I would like to stress upon the need to emphasize on undergraduate education. What I would like to see happening, is not the way our IPTAs and IPTSs are run currently, but what I would hope would be to have some form of transformation in terms of our undergraduate education.

Our universities should cater to a large number of Malaysians. As of current stage, bachelor degree holders are still the main mode of education in Malaysia.

So, my opinion on this issue would be:-
a) Universities should stress upon the empowerment of undergraduates to learn how to learn. Undergraduates should have the freedom within limit to select what they would like to learn and craft their undergraduate learning upon their choice. Students should be allowed to determine how much workload they would be able to take.

b) Undergraduates should also be taught to learn how to think, how to interact, how to lead, how to manage people/resources, how to communicate, how to be a good listener etc. It would be essential for our graduates to build in themselves some amount of soft skills.

c) Undergraduates should also be encouraged to build up their network, learning from their peers worldwide, as well as learning from those faculty, entrepreneurs, alumni, corporate people etc.

I would look at these skills to be more essential than building up R&D skills for undergrads for the general undergraduate. While I am not saying that R&D is not essential, it would be very difficult for us to transform all Malaysians to get hyped up with R&D.

So, my personal opinion would be to concentrate a couple of universities on research and put most of the research money into those couple of universities. With this, we could get those more research inclined or with research interest students to get into these research universities, whereas other universities would concentrate on different aspects of education.

As a nation, we would need different types of population, and hence, we would need a neat combination of various aspects.

[Chyi]

I am currently schooling in Tokyo and I am quite outdated with the education in Malaysia, but I would love to share sth I feel impressive with the school mates I met in my Uni, and some experience of myself as a Uni student here, with some comparison with what I know about Msian Uni students.

1) the hot keywords in Japan now is 'Venture', 'Cooperation between Uni and Enterprise'. Many students working part time in some venture (technology, consulting, think tank, system innovation) companies. They gain the tactics to start up their business, applying their technology and programming skill, communication skill and building their network with this kind of experience. and one of my friend's classmate earn RM10,000 per month designing train schedule for Japan Railway.

2) They are many 'societies' and 'club' activities, like 'business plan club' for business contest, Robot contests, Investment clubs, the students are not only studying or learning, they are active in various activities, and become smart in different fields.

3) the students in my Uni need to do liberal arts for 1 and half years, to be an all rounded person who is knowledgable and not limited to his own professional.

I personally think that books n school reports are not everything for a Uni student, shoule challenge more and build to be a better and all rounded person.

Unfortunately my image of local Uni is not very good, I heard that many of them doing direct sales, selling insurance.. This is not good but maybe not so helpful as education purpose / building a nation.

[digimushu]

Chenchow,

I think you misunderstood my last post. You were a student in one of the US universities, where students have a say in what goes on. We can choose to remove a university president by petitioning a vote of no-confidence in his/her leadership. Also, you saw how students, not professors, were competing in competitions to develop their skills, competitions where they had to survive a year long project to design any build machines without being explicitly coached by professors.

We are not producing students like that, and i am blaming it on our whole education system, starting from kindergartens. How do we change students, who are ingrained from their primary school years, to measure their academic improvement by their understanding of the subject matter rather than by the number of As they have? How do we create independent thinkers from a bunch of kiasu, A-measuring drones? Your vase is only as good as the clay you get. Our kids lack imagination, only because they were required to by the system. When everything boils down to useless subjects like the scheme-based moral education and a specific way of answering things, we will be doomed as we are constrained to think in a certain manner.

Our kids do not ask questions in class, only because they fear making mistakes and because they have never been asked to ask questions. They fear questioning authority and they also fear making mistakes. The fear of making mistakes is the bane of any creative society. If Edison had feared failure after a few lightbulbs, we would all be left in the dark. heck, if the cavemen who saw the burning logs from the lightning strikes was scared, we would all be in the dark right now. In Malaysia, you hear students making money by selling insurance and direct selling in the universities. Is that the true pursuit of a student in a university?

I would look at these skills to be more essential than building up R&D skills for undergrads for the general undergraduate. While I am not saying that R&D is not essential, it would be very difficult for us to transform all Malaysians to get hyped up with R&D.


R&D is not limited to Engineering and Science. One could also do research on historical analysis and aesthetic effects of architectural design. There are a gazillion things to work on but my main point is that in our country, if the research does not bring in money instantly(2-3 years), no university in our country will fund it. Dont you think that is silly as far as academia is concerned? The pursuit of knowledge and academic excellence goes hand in hand. Without any hunger for knowledge, academic excellence merely becomes a measure of As on transcripts.

Yes, the skills you said are important, but dont you see that those are the same things you will need to do research. They need to think, interact, question and communicate ideas no matter where they are. but our locally produced graduates are lacking in those skills. They are more concerned about making sure they do not piss off professors that will be detrimental to their grades and making money more than to acquire knowledge. We are creating a society that starts from measuring how many As they have in their report cards to measuring the amount of money they have in their account.

We pat our backs and tell ourselves we are an asian tiger, but even Singapore is scared of China. Are we?

[breakout7]

The Universities in Malaysia are 'sausage factories'.

[vseehua]

which i why i would very much malaysia to follow in the footsteps of the german education system, of which politics have no say in whatever they have decide and do.
but alas,our country's leadership's more concerned about their own posts than anything else...and hence the laws to prevent university students from voicing out their views...just look at the report in the star today..some students are to be charged to complaining about the unfair university elections by the board of directors...man we are encouraging pembodek all over the country, if not, we can't survive...or get caught up using isa for "endangering the peace in the country"

[el_empty]

please read the following article by our very own recommers Charis and Shien Jin

http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/smf/cgi-bin/wiki/index.cgi?OngQuay20041120

it was highlighted by Jeff Ooi's Screenshots in his Higher Education in Crisis series, which you should read too:

http://www.jeffooi.com/MT3/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=2&search=Higher+education+in+crisis%3F

[Salvation]

I think one idea our unis can explore is to team up with local and foreign companies for students to have their internship. It is a win-win situation in which companies can get good brains at cheap wages :p , student can get some job experience and we can progress in our R&D.

For exemple,

To be awarded the HEC Master?s Degree (Dipl?me HEC), students must pass all courses, complete mandatory internship requirements (40 weeks for student joining the program in the Foundation Cycle, 30 weeks for students admitted directly in to the Graduate Cycle), and obtain a minimum TOEIC score of 800 points.

40 weeks is indeed alot but maybe we can start with less :D

[digimushu]

I think one idea our unis can explore is to team up with local and foreign companies for students to have their internship. It is a win-win situation in which companies can get good brains at cheap wages :p , student can get some job experience and we can progress in our R&D.



They are already doing that. I say the reform should come at an earlier stage of education. I went thru the M'sian education and I'll be darned if i let my future kids go thru that crappy system too.

[Rinke]

I totally support that there has to be instititutions that 100% focusing on research...

But for universities, by their accepted nature and functions...i.e. traditional meaning of a university... 100% research is not possible.... there has to be some kind teaching for all universities. Look at Cambridge...Caltech.... they don't 100% focus on research...

May be, a better solution is to have more research schools or research institutions within universities... these institutions then may spent 100% of their time doing research.....

[vseehua]

well, the dfference is that their students are also involved in research and development, and ours are still being fed like babies in lectures...

when you are involved, you tend to learn much more than when you study y cramming yourself in the room 24 hours a day...

[digimushu]

From the way things are looking now, such as, the failure of the MSC, biovalley, bionexus, etc, Malaysia will probably never be a leader in the research community.

It is a really sad thing that above all, politics still dominate in M'sia.

[bush]

so malaysia should be the leader in political science.....haha

[Thirdshifter]

From the way things are looking now, such as, the failure of the MSC, biovalley, bionexus, etc, Malaysia will probably never be a leader in the research community.

It is a really sad thing that above all, politics still dominate in M'sia.

Who should be blamed? The politicians?

I hate the blame game but to what extent has MSC failed?

[vseehua]

politics in everything in malaysia...down to even how you go out and eat...geez...

well,a good measure of how it failed will be how much didn't the government hype about it...

[juventus]

Malaysia has so much potential - land, natural resources. But the most important of all, education has failed us.

We need brains to fully realise the potential of our country. Take Chelsea for example (i'm a football fan!), before Jose Mourinho came onboard, the team was so-so. When he led the team, players like Joe Cole, Frank Lampard (the original players of Chelsea, before Roman Abramovich's era) improved immensely.

Which brings me back to my point, without a capable leader, our nation won't prosper even with the land and natural resources we possess.

For example, in my class, during History, nobody listens to the teacher. Everyone is busy completing their homework (for other subjects!) and scribbling their notebooks. That's because everything the teacher says in the text book. We were being spoon fed as usual.

To score A1, all you need to do is buy a good reference book, read and finish the exercises. That's all. No research is needed. If you ask the students anything related to momentum (let's say), they would vomit out the facts as stated in the reference book. Ask them further, and they would be clueless.

Sad to say, I'm one of them.

I'm all for students to do their own research. Discover new things, be curious, ask questions. Not just wait for information from teachers.

Improve the education system in Malaysia, please!

[johnleemk]

Hm. Seems this thread has shifted from discussing universities to discussing education in general. Well, I think Recommers should know my take on this -- there was a huge fuss about it not too long ago. Richard Feynman has his own thoughts, too (http://www.iroatm.cjb.net/forums/index.php?fid=2&pid=212).

[digimushu]

From the way things are looking now, such as, the failure of the MSC, biovalley, bionexus, etc, Malaysia will probably never be a leader in the research community.

It is a really sad thing that above all, politics still dominate in M'sia.

Who should be blamed? The politicians?

I hate the blame game but to what extent has MSC failed?

Are computer companies flocking to open factories and research centers in M'sia? Have we achieved completion of all 7 flagship applications of the MSC? Looking at the MYkad fiasco, and how the shoplots in putra jaya are empty, i judge it to be.