NATHANIEL Tan’s article, “Universities need to focus on genuine quality, not obsess over rank” (TheStarOnline at https://bit.ly/2V35Lxn, May 7) was a welcome rush of oxygen to academics under misguided academic hierarchies. The writer highlighted some concerns about quality of research output from public universities. However, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg as far as the ranking problems are concerned. There are many more problems developing as a result of these meaningless pursuits of local universities.
University leaders and academic hierarchies are losing sight of the needs of the country and its people. And nowhere is this problem more apparent than in private universities.