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Westernization on Higher Education: The Impacts on the Life of Global Community
Rusda Irawatia, Angel Mahb, Noor Saif Muhammad Mussafi c, Siti Zubaidahd, Muhammed Fauzi bin Othmane a:Azman Hashim International Business School, UTM JB
b: School of Chemical Engineering, UTM JB c: Faculty of Science, UTM JB
d: Faculty of Engineering (School of Computing) e: Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, UTM JB
*Corresponding Author Email:
Abstract
The research system and ranking system in universities have long followed the standards set by the higher education system that originated in the western world. Developing countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia follow a system that has existed in western higher education, even since the era of colonialism. Occupation of countries such as the Netherlands and Britain, in the 17th century left the same format of education as applicable in their country. Using the library research method, this paper concludes that countries with higher education and research systems that have experienced developments such as Malaysia can apply their own research systems and ranking systems according to the criteria set. The paper also concludes that the western higher education system has positive and negative impacts and that the current system in western higher education should be used as an evaluation tool for the level of higher education that is implemented by not eliminating the identity in higher education itself.
Key words: western education system; ranking system; research system 1 Introduction
Many believe that the research system and ranking system in higher education is dominated by the western system since the beginning of its development. Ex-British colonies such as Malaysia experienced a development of an education system that began from the era of colonialism, the era after the Second World War and the new era like the conditions that occur today.
In the era of colonialism, formal relations with the education system in colonized countries such as Malaysia were very complex. Someone who has a high education will get a place in the community and is a second class citizen under the invaders. Very limited access for ordinary people to get a better level of education. The development of formal education during British rule in the Straits Settlement provided an important precedent for educational decision making when the British government was transformed into a comprehensive and entrenched colonial administration on the Malay Peninsula in the years after 1874. For this it means that the development of education stems primarily from the local efforts of dedicated individuals both inside and outside the East India Company and that the role of public authorities in the education sector is tightly restricted (Wicks, 2014). Furthermore (Wicks, 2014), it was revealed that at this time politics was involved in the development of education. West Malaysia focuses on following the British education system. The opportunity to get education has not been evenly distributed in the community groups at that time: invaders, China, India and Malays. The number of male Malays who have the opportunity to study is below the number of men of Chinese and Indian descent.
After World War II, (Lazerson, 1998) demonstrated that at this time educational institutions changed from public institutions to private institutions for economic purposes. He further showed that the three forms of education patterns that developed after World War II were vocational, public higher education and various middle-level education sectors. This period is also characterized by tuition fees that exceed the economic return value.
Development in the present, is known as a new era in the field of higher education in Malaysia. In 2014, the stage at which Malaysian higher education changed by adopting a western higher education system. The higher education system provides flexibility in the learning environment, where students can learn by themselves from home using the basis of an open learning system. At this time English language was established as a research language in higher education. In 2015, Malaysia has reached a position of higher education where the number of international students reached level 9 of the 30000 universities spread throughout the world. The level of research in higher
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159 education has also reached a significant number and has increased to several times
((https://www.bharian.com.my/node/186794, 2016).
This paper aims to describe the dominance of the western education system in higher education, related to two aspects, namely the research system and ranking system. Furthermore, it will discuss the general criteria of the research system and ranking system in higher education, the measurement of research performance and ranking system, why the research system and western ranking system are needed, the impact of the research system and ranking system, the weakness of the western ranking system, and whether it is correct really has measured the quality of a higher education. The paper also tries to illustrate that the position of higher education in Southeast Asian countries has reached a promising stage as the goal of continuing education and becoming an alternative destination college other than universities in western countries.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Research System in Higher Education
Higher education (HE) is one of the pivotal areas for the economy development. This field is included in the priorities of the Government on research development. This field believes all citizens shall have the right to free in learning and producing new ideas. This situation brings a highly performing higher education and science system through a carefully designed consolidation process with the aim to create a binary higher education system with robust university of applied sciences and university sectors. In order to achieve this, the university especially in Malaysia as developing country decided to follow the international research system. This international research system currently becomes a huge guideline and leading party research system in HE (Kristina Tsaturyan, 2017).
Furthermore, in order to enhance the diversification and profiling of HE institutions, the group of research intensive universities been proposed which in Malaysia known as Research University (RU). There are five public research universities in Malaysia which have been listed in the top 1%universities worldwide. The five universities are Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). As a good news, Malaysia been listed out in top 10 Best Universities based on research publications. The Figure 2 is shown the achievement of research publications regarding Malaysia’s Universities (Jusoh, 2015).
Figure 1. The Achievement of Research Publications Regarding Malaysia’s Universities
On another related focus, the round table meeting on the International Dimension of Higher Education Perspectives by UNESCO was debated and attempted to propose definitions of the roles of HE in the society of the 21st century from the specific viewpoint of the social function of the university as distinct from its intellectual function in term of teaching and research. Moreover, the debate also continues the issues up to its educational function such as cultivation of the mind, transmission of basic ideas and concepts which clearly mention how the research system internationally running. (Secretariat, 1991).
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160 2.1.1 Common Criteria of Research System
The common criteria of research system involved two main parts which are Novelty of Work and English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) (Hilary Nesi, 2018).
a. Novelty of Work
Novelty is a very important aspect of research. It is true that research has progressed tremendously in the past two decades due to the advent and accessibility of new technologies that enable goods and data sharing.
Consequently, it might be difficult to find a topic about which nothing is known or no literature is available. However, there is still a lot of scope for progress. In order to find novelty in new area of research, a deep study of literature search in order to find out what is known and what are the gaps which need to be analyzed and clarified. There are probabilities which might be topics that are studied but reports are still contradictory (Insights, 2018).
Researching this can lead to novel leads. Many times, a novel research might just mean disproving what is already known. The novelty will largely depend on the depth of knowledge on the selected field. With the increasing amount of research output, many high impact journals are now seeking highly novel information to publish. In high impact journal, firstly, editors and reviewers see whether the manuscript is within the journal scope or not and whether the manuscript meets the novelty standard of the journal. As conclude, novelty of a research work is not about the publishing a new highest value for particular properties, example highest strength but it is about a totally new developed material or method used in the research work (Insights, 2018).
b. English as Medium of Instruction (EMI)
As related, this is the main reason why universities in nations where students tend to be highly proficient in English have often switched to English, especially for courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In Malaysia, However, the more general move to EMI that makes up the bulk of the current boom is due to a (mistaken) view that EMI is a simple way to speed up graduates' upward social and economic mobility. Many governments believe that EMI programmed will improve students’ English proficiency, and therefore result in a workforce that is more fluent in English. EMI is seen to give students a double benefit: knowledge of their subject, plus English language skills. Governments, and students for that matter, think that this will make them more attractive in the global job market (Galloway, 2017). Furthermore, (Galloway, 2017) said that, Universities judge that switching to English will not only improve their graduates' job prospects, but will make them more tempting to applicants drawn by well-paid future careers. Also, because English is the language of research, having more staff on their faculty who speak English could increase the amount of English-language research they get published in international journals, raising the university's position in rankings. In some countries, EMI programmed also attract fee-paying international students (and often domestic students, who pay higher fees for such courses. The study showed that EMI is approached in different ways in China and Japan. English was used more in Japan than in China, and the Japanese students had started learning English from a younger age, and had more experience abroad. This is likely to change in the future, given the booming Chinese English language teaching industry, and the number of Chinese students studying abroad (Galloway, 2017). One of the most surprising findings was how differently staff and students think about EMI. When students enroll in these programmed to improve their English proficiency, they expect a degree of English language support. Universities need to provide a clear rationale for EMI programmed, what they hope the students will learn, and how much English will be used. As addition, English also had been dignified as Science Language in Malaysia (Tan, 2018).
c. English Academic Journals (EAJ)
After English become international education language for publishing, the significant of achievement on publishing journals in English are keeps be measured. This situation makes the higher level of education included communities of academic’s people and students have to cope with new developments in their fields, they must also master the language in which the subject is written in English. This is where they face enormous difficulties if they neglect or are not proficient in English. English is an international language that can be globally understood in academic circles (Hilary Nesi, 2018). Furthermore, the research publishing communities recently provided the community of EAJ which provides a forum for the dissemination of information and views which enables practitioners of and researchers in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to keep current with developments in their field and to contribute to its continued updating. Journals of EAP publishes articles, book reviews, conference reports, and academic exchanges informational knowledge concerning the linguistic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic description of English as it is
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161 used for the purposes of academic study and scholarly exchange (Hilary Nesi, 2018). EAJ also involved a wide range of linguistic, applied linguistic and educational topics which be treated from the perspective of English for academic purposes. It is included the classroom language, teaching methodology, teacher education, assessment of language, needs analysis, materials development and evaluation, discourse analysis, acquisition studies in EAP contexts, research writing while included speaking at all academic levels, the socio politics of English in academic uses, and language planning. EAJ also become a big influencer when able to encourage all publisher around the word become more focus and put their interest on English review essays. Besides that, Malaysia also not misses out the opportunity in involving on producing research journal (Hilary Nesi, 2018).
2.1.2 Measurements of Research Performance
The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 had produced the measurements statistical results on H.E in Malaysia. Based on Figure 5, clearly shown the achievement of Malaysia in ASEAN and research environment quite good in pass 5-10 years (Jusoh, 2015). Besides that, Malaysia research performance also involved another five measurement elements which are Impact Factor, Cite score, Journal rank, H-Index, and M-Index (Marx, 2016). This is proven how important the research field is.
Figure 2. The Achievement Results from Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025, Source: (Jusoh, 2015) 2.2 Global Higher Education Ranking System (GHERS)
According to the dictionary, a ranking represents a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either “ranked higher than”, “ranked lower than” or “ranked equal to” the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of objects. It is not necessarily a total order of objects because two different objects can have the same ranking ((Pavel, 2015). GHERS is a mechanism that use available information to rank order institutions of higher education in the world based on criteria defined by the ranking organization. The purpose of ranking systems is to quantify, down to a single number, the relative quality of institutions (Swail, 2011).
The higher education (HE) environment has expanded considerably since the dawn of the 20th century (Schofer, 2005), and the increased demand for higher education has led to the development and success of higher education ranking systems (HERS) (David D. Dill, 2005; Soo, 2005) which measure higher education systems and institutions according to their relative standing on a global scale. This contributes to the growth of competition among higher education institutions creating a new paradigm in most countries (Altbach, 2006).
2.2.1 Ranking Organization and Criteria Set Up by Them
University ranking systems have been intensely debated, for instance (Calero-Medina C., 2008; A. Van Raan, 2005), (Salmi, 2009), and (Hazelkorn, 2013). A report from the European University Association concluded that despite their shortcomings, evident biases and flaws, rankings are here to stay. “For this reason it is important that universities are aware of the degree to which they are transparent, from a user’s perspective, of the relationship between what it is stated is being measured and what is in fact being measured, how the scores are calculated and what they mean”
(Rauhvargers, 2011). A base notion underlying the current article is that a critical, comparative analysis of a series of university ranking systems can provide useful knowledge that helps a wide range of interested users to better
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162 understand the information provided in these systems, and to interpret and use it in an informed, responsible manner.
An overview of the indicators, included in the various systems: ARWU World University Rankings 2015, QS World University Rankings 2015-2016, THE World University Rankings 2015-2016, and U-Multi rank 2016 Edition (Moed, 2016b), is given in Table 1.
Table 1. Overview of Five Information Systems on the Performance of Higher Education Institutions
Aspect ARWU World
University Rankings 2015
QS World University Rankings 2015-2016
THE World University Rankings 2015-2016
U-Multi rank 2016 Edition Website http://www.shangha
iranking.com/ARWU 2015.html
http://www.topuniver sites.com/university- rankings
http://www.timeshighe reducation.com/world- university-rankings
http://www.umult irank.org
Universities Included
Every university that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medalists, Highly Cited Researchers, or
papers published in Nature or Science, or
significant amount of
papers indexed by SCIE/SSCI. The best 500 are published on the web.
918 universities are included
800 universities with at least 200 articles per year
published in journals indexed in Scopus, and teaching at least undergraduates in each year during 2010-2014
In principle all higher education institutions can register for participation. The current version includes about 1,300 institutions.
Indicators / dimensions and their weights
Quality of Education Alumni (10%) Awards (20%)
Quality of Faculty Highly cited researchers (20%) Publ. in Nature, Science (20%)
Research output Publications (20%)
Per Capita
Performance (10%)
Academic Reputation (40%), based on QS survey
Employer Reputation, based on QS survey (10%)
Faculty Student Ratio (20%)
Citations per Faculty (20%)
International Students (10%)
International Faculty (10%)
Teaching (30%), mainly
based on reputation survey
International Outlook (7.5%)
Research (30%), mainly
based on reputation survey
Citations (30%)
Industry Income (2.5%)
Data sources used
Databases on Nobel Prizes and field medals; Thomson- Reuters Web of Knowledge and Highly
Cited researchers;
data on academic staff from national agencies
QS Academic Reputation
Survey; self-reported data from universities;
data from government and other agencies;
bibliometric data from Elsevier’s Scopus
THE Reputation Surveys;
self-reported data from universities;
bibliometric data from Elsevier’s Scopus
U-Multi rank student surveys;
self-reported data from universities;
bibliometric data from Web of Science and PATSTAT database on
patents
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163 ARWU, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, also indicated as ‘Shanghai Ranking’ is the oldest ranking system. Initially created by the Center for World-Class Universities (CWCU) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, since 2009 it has been published and copyrighted by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. It combines bibliometric data from Thomson Reuters with data on prizes and awards of current and former academic staff or students. The ARWU 2015 Ranking of World Universities, available online and analyzed in the current article, covers 500 institutions. The Leiden Ranking is not a ranking in the strict sense but rather a bibliometric information system, containing for about 850 universities bibliometric data extracted from Web of Science related to publication output, citation impact and scientific collaboration. This article uses the 2016 version of the database (Moed, 2016b).
U-Multi rank is prepared with seed funding from the European Union by a Consortium lead in 2016 by the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), The Netherlands; Centre for Higher Education (CHE) in Germany;
and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, The Netherlands. This article is based on the 2016 version. A key feature of the U-Multi rank system is the inclusion of teaching and learning-related indicators.
While some of these relate to a university as a whole, the core part is concerned with 13 specific scientific-scholarly disciplines, and based on a survey among students.
Between 2004 and 2009, Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) jointly published the THES-QS World University Rankings. After they had ended their collaboration, the methodology for these rankings continued to be used by QS as the owner of its intellectual property. Since 2010 these rankings are known as the QS World University Rankings. At the same time, THE started publishing another ranking, applying a methodology developed in partnership with Thomson Reuters in 2010, known as the Times Higher Education or THE World University Rankings and related rankings. At present, both organizations have a collaboration with Elsevier, and use bibliometric data from Scopus (Moed, 2016a).
A series of interesting studies analyzed statistical properties and validity within particular university ranking systems (Paruolo, 2013) ), mostly focusing on the so called overall indicator which is calculated as a weighted sum of the various indicators. For instance, a factor analysis per ranking system conducted by (Soh, 2015) found that the factors identified in ARWU, THE or QS systems are negatively correlated or not correlated at all, providing evidence that the indicators covered by each system are not “mutually supporting and additive”. Rather than dealing with the internal consistency and validity within a particular system, the current paper makes comparisons among systems. All five systems listed above claim to provide valid and useful information for determining academic excellence, and have their own set of indicators for measuring excellence. Three systems, ARWU, THE and QS, present an overall indicator, by calculating a weighted sum of scores of a set of key indicators. The Leiden Ranking and U-Multi rank do not have this type of composite measure. Moreover, (Hazelkorn, 2013) mentioned a simple comparison of what rankings measure and what they do not measure (Table 2). He also compiled all the unique criteria made by ranking organization into five common criteria, i.e. Faculty/Student ratio, resources, education output, research, and reputation.
Table 2. What Rankings Measure
Rankings Measure Rankings Do Not Measure
Bio- and medical sciences Research
Publications in Nature and Science
Student and Faculty Characteristics (e.g.
productivity, entry criteria, faculty/student ratio)
Internationalization
Reputation – amongst peers, employers, students
Teaching and Learning, incl. “added value”, impact of research on teaching
Arts, Humanities and Social Science Research
Technology/Knowledge Transfer or Impact and Benefit of Research
Regional or Civic Engagement
Student Experience
a. Faculty/Student Ratio
Because measuring the quality of teaching and learning is highly complex, rankings such as the THE-QS, QS and U-Multi rank use faculty/student ratio as a proxy for teaching quality. A smaller ratio is viewed as equivalent to better teaching on the basis that small classes create the optimum learning environment. Faculty/staff ratio also has very different meanings for public and private institutions and systems, and may say more about the funding or efficiency level. Class size in and of itself can be a hollow indicator especially when used to measure the learning