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Media Statement (2) 
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Petaling Jaya, Sunday): Malaysia has been left out of the World�s Top 500 Universities ranking for the fifth year in succession in the  �Academic Ranking of World Universities ARWU 2007� just released by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. 

Singapore has two, Australia 17 and New Zealand five universities in the latest world university ranking, which is dominated by US universities with Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and Cambridge occupying the top four places. 

It would have been good news for Malaysia�s 50^th Merdeka anniversary to demonstrate the success of  the country�s universities to get out of the rut of mediocrity and return to  the path of excellence and quality if Malaysia had managed to get listed among the World Top 500 Universities in the ARWU 2007 � but it is clear that all the talk of higher education reform has not borne fruit with the lack of political will to give top priority to meritocracy and academic excellence to scale the ranks of world-class universities.  

The Higher Education Minister, Datuk Mustapha Mohamad should explain why no Malaysian university has been able to get ranked in the ARWU in the past five years and when he expects Malaysian universities to achieve such interenational recognition. 

The statistics by country for the World Top 500 universities inn  the ARWU 2007 are: 

USA            166

UK               42

Germany     41

Japan           32

China           25

Canada         22

France          22

Italy              20

Australia        17

Netherlands   12

Sweden        11

Spain               9

South Korea    8

Switzerland     8

Belgium          7

Austria             7

Israel              7

Finland            5

Brazil               5

New Zealand   5

South Africa    4

Ireland             3

Singapore        2

Greece             2

Hungary           2

Poland             2

India                 2

Chile                2

Portugal           2

Argentina         1

Slovenia           1

Turkey              1

Egypt                1

Mexico              1 

Total             508

(12/8/2007)