What is the ‘cost’ when choice is based on ranking?
Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
My View - The Sun Daily
September 7, 2016
NEW students are registering in droves this week at universities of their choice. What is the "cost" when the choice is based on "ranking?"
A decade ago, when I was helming a university, the "cost" was in the tens of thousands.
The "promise" was to get wider exposure and visibility – meaning better "placing" in the league table, which is commercially devised and promoted to look overboard and professional.
We did not fall for it because it is self-delusional to say the least. Some deemed it as "cheating" – or worse.
Today, it seems little has changed except the charges for a similar "promise", which has increased many fold.
Evidently, it now ranges in the hundreds of thousands of ringgit involving the same commercial house.
While it is next to impossible to figure out how the "commodity" called education has been "overpriced," what is certain is that emboldened by the many institutions that are "sucked" in the ranking game the rankers are becoming more ambitious.
Having successfully created greater (artificial) demands they dare to hike up the price to the seven-digit range.
In fact, in some education sectors, this figure can be many folds depending on the "positioning".
Currently, the "opening gambit" is even more aggressive and sophisticatedly (in a commercial sense) packaged.
The highest tier can start with several millions tied to special privileges to "cook" the submission.
This can take various forms to be negotiated with the client institutions – bordering on unethical practices.
All is done clandestinely that none of the parties involved want to vouch for it without their integrity being called into question.
Hence for those who are wondering what is so academic about such an exercise, wonder no more. It is all about corrupting "education" and the so-called academic activity as a façade of "excellence" to profit from students who are (mis)labelled as "customers." In the marketplace, the customer is king.
It is no surprise then that so many were trapped, notably those who have little inkling of what is going on or what "ranking" is all about to begin with.
Or worse, how maligned our ethos or philosophy of education is when all that matters are just numbers and percentages.
Only because it is easier to understand and articulate them, rightly or wrongly, regardless if it defies the National Philosophy of Education.
Meanwhile, the rankers are laughing all the way to the bank, leaving undiscerning education institutions under pressure to continue playing the game for fear of losing the "customers", many of whom are oblivious to what "ranking" actually means.
Instead of "educating" them on the issue, the safer option is to play along and not risk their "wrath".
Thus the situation sinks deeper and deeper into the dominant KPI mindset where all must be reduced to numbers to give meaning, albeit empty ones.
This is where education begins to falter dramatically.
Ironically, the rankers know this too well. When their "overtures" are rejected in preference to another vendor, they privately admit that all commercial league tables resort to the same devious rules of the game.
In other words, by knowingly supporting and participating in such ranking exercises, we are undermining education one way or the other, consciously or otherwise. Just by endorsing the so-called "scores" is enough to renegade education. The "cost" is hefty not only financially but more so educationally.
Under the circumstances shouldn't education institutions implicated be restrained from its own self-deceiving unethical tendencies and "demeaning" the "customers" and the family?
Is it not time to crack into the core issues about "ranking" and call a spade a spade so that education can be rebuilt by nurturing the right values as per the National Philosophy of Education moving forward?