Using the right yardstick
ALTHOUGH the move to bank heavily on objective measures was purposed to give a reliable point of reference for Universiti Malaya (UM), some argue that the drawbacks of such an approach are too glaring to ignore.
Among them is UM academic staff association president Assoc Prof Dr Azmi Sharom who explains the downside of a one-dimensional objective approach with a hypothetical argument.
“An academic may be required to supervise five PhD students during a period of time but what happens when nobody applies because the field is unpopular?” he argues.
Dr Azmi says academic autonomy should not be forgotten.“He will be at a disadvantage when compared to an academic whose field is popular although the latter may not be.”
Applying the same principles, a publication may not be good just because it appears in an ISI journal and more thought needs to go into the evaluation system.
Taking research impact factors into account, Dr Azmi says, will be a more valid way of looking at things as academics could see the efficacy of their efforts.
“If one produces a patent, how much royalty does one obtain?” he ventures.
“Publications must lead to citations and if one supervises PhD students, there is a need to find out what those students are doing after they graduate.”
Dr Azmi says that while UM’s transformation plans addressed pertinent issues, the root causes of the varsity’s decline could not go undetected and the right comparisons had to be drawn.
“We should not read too much into comparisons with Singaporean varsities as they have a lot of money to hire and retain international staff and locking this down in areas of Science and Medicine guarantees lots of publications,” he says.
“It is true that Indonesian and Thai varsities are outperforming ours but apart from focusing on financial and human resource issues, we must not forget about academic autonomy.”
Dr Azmi says a “great awakening” arose after President Suharto’s ouster and this led to greater rights for the Indonesian academics.
The movement evolved to the point where Indonesian law guaranteed academic freedom in its varsities and this, he says, is something Malaysia could learn from.
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