"BUT....."

Malaysians should be terribly upset with the explanation given by Dr Hashim Yacob that we did “very well” in 3 out of the 5 categories in the survey done by THES. The plunge in overall ranking from 89 to 169 seems to be a non-issue to him when he uses the conjunction “but”. So again another issue of note is waved away with ..."but"... the cracks on package 11 of MRR2 can be repaired but at the cost of $20 million...Bank Islam loses $480 million but "we are on the mend and cleaning problem areas". We would have rewarded Nicol David but.......

UM among top 100 in three sectors
Link : The Star --- BY LEANNE GOH AND KAREN CHAPMAN

KUALA LUMPUR: Universiti Malaya's overall position in the World Universities Rankings 2005 may have dropped significantly but its performance in three categories and its improved marks are achievements to be proud of, said its Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Hashim Yaacob. He expressed “great happiness” that UM was placed among the top 100 universities in three out of five categories – Arts and Humanities (45th place), Biomedicine (82nd) and Social Science (83rd). The other two categories are Science and Technology. “Last year, we did not make it to the top 100 in any of the five categories, but this year we made it to …Prof Hashim said that “at first glance,” it looked like UM had done badly in this year's ranking but a more thorough study would show that its performance had improved…“Last year, our overall score was 16.6% only, but this year it was 23.5%,” he said.
However, he could not explain why UM had dropped so much in the overall rankings when it seemed to have improved in some areas.
The vice-chancellor noted that there were more than 30,000 universities worldwide and UM still managed to be in the top 200. “I want to share my happiness with you that although there are so many universities in the world, we are number 169,” he said, citing other top universities which had dropped by many notches. Seventy universities from last year's list are not in this year's.