Singapore, Malaysia lead south-east Asia ranking of universities 

SINGAPORE (MNTV) — Universities in Singapore and Malaysia lead a pilot Times Higher Education (THE) ranking focused on south-east Asia, a rapidly advancing region in global higher education.

The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, claim the top two places in the table, which analysed 195 higher education institutions from across the region using THE’s World University Rankings methodology.

The others are seven Malaysian institutions, led by Universiti Teknologi Petronas in third place, and one in Brunei Darussalam: Universiti Brunei Darussalam in seventh place.

Indonesia’s flagship, the University of Indonesia, is ranked 22nd in the region.

Malaysia dominates the top 50, taking 18 spots in this group, while Indonesia is the most-represented country overall, with 35 ranked institutions. A recent report from THE’s consultancy team found that Indonesia was set to overtake the U.S. and Brazil as the third largest higher education system in the world by student numbers within a decade.  

Singapore’s two leading universities, which are among the best in the world, not only the region, outperform their neighbors on most metrics. Earlier this year, the head of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, told THE how the institution was prioritizing collaboration over competition with the National University of Singapore to help attract international researchers and improve student outcomes.

But Malaysia’s Lincoln University College is number one in South-east Asia in the international outlook pillar, which measures universities’ share of international students, staff and research publications. 

Malaysia is aiming to enroll 250,000 students from overseas by the end of the decade under its Education Development Plan.

The pilot ranking was created to offer a snapshot of what an official THE ranking of South-east Asian universities could look like. 

Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Bristol, said that as a regional grouping Asean has been “highly successful”.

“The growth of per capita incomes, the expansion of participation in tertiary education and building of science have provided favorable conditions for closer practical cooperation and integration, encouraging student mobility, research collaboration and policy borrowing. This in turn has enhanced each individual higher education system,” he said.

Marginson added that a strength of the region is “broadly distributed capability”. “Along with Singapore, where the two leading universities are at American levels of performance in research, Malaysia is a major player in international education and science, Thailand has long had a strong national system, and both Indonesia and Vietnam have made amazing progress in science. The Philippines, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lack sufficient national investment but benefit from regional relationships.”

Phil Baty, THE’s chief global affairs officer, said: “With such a huge and young population, and impressive economic growth, South-east Asia is one of the most dynamic and most closely watched regions of the world – and THE’s data shows very clearly that it is becoming an increasingly important global hub for higher education, research and innovation, with its universities making exciting strides up the world rankings.

“But the global focus of the rankings, and indeed, even an Asian focus, can obscure the exceptional pace of change specifically across the Asean bloc, and the success of key, individual universities. So we are really excited to focus our data, and the trusted world rankings performance metrics, to offer a closer, direct spotlight on the region.”