The University of Malaya is a public research university located in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest and most esteemed university in Malaysia.
The university's name was abbreviated as Malaya during the pre-independence
period. The university was founded in 1949 as a
public-funded tertiary institution. Today, it has more than 2,500 faculty
members. In 2012, UM was granted autonomy status by the Ministry of
Higher Education. Today, the University is divided into 12 faculties, 2
academies and 3 Centres, namely: Faculty of Law, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty
of Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Built Environment, Faculty of
Economics and Administration, Faculty of Business and Accountancy, Faculty of
Education, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Faculty of
Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Technology, Academy of Malay Studies, Academy of Islamic Studies, Cultural
Centre, Sports Centre and Centre for Foundation Studies.
In 2015, the QS World University Rankings has ranked UM at the 146th
place in the world. Also in the same year, the university is ranked 29th
place in the QS Asian University Rankings, 3rd in Southeast Asia and is
the highest ranked learning institution in Malaysia.
History = King Edward VI Medical College of
Medicine= The establishment of the university
began with the issue of shortage of medical assistants in Singapore and
Penang during the late 1890s. The problem was addressed in a report
published by the Education Commission in April 1902. In the report, it was stated
that the Commission was in favour of establishing a medical school to fulfil
the demand for medical assistants in government hospitals. However, such view
was not in favour among the European community.
Legislation was passed by the Straits Legislative Council in June 1905 under
Ordinance No. XV 1905. The school opened on 3 July 1905 and began functioning in
September. On 28 September 1905, Sir John officiated the school under the
name ‘The Straits and Federated Malay States Government Medical School.’
The school was located in the old Female Lunatic Asylum near the Singapore
General Hospital at Sepoy Lines off New Bridge Road, where four of the asylum
buildings were converted into a medical school. In 1907, a lecture hall and
laboratory were added. There were no library and room to keep pathological
specimens. In 1905, there were 17 medical students,
four students attending the hospital assistant course. Five years later, the
enrolments increased to 90 medical students and 30 trainee hospital
assistants. The school had only one permanent staff which was the Principal,
the teaching staff were employed on a part-time basis. The Principal was Dr
Gerald Dudley Freer, who previously served as Senior Colonial Surgeon
Resident of Penang. The School Council wanted to gain
recognition of its Diploma by the General Council of Medical Education in
the United Kingdom to ensure that the Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery
Diploma offered by the school would gain worldwide recognition. In 1916, the GCME
recognised the Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery Diploma offered by the
school. The licentiates were placed on the General Council’s Colonial List of
the British Medical Register and were entitled to practise anywhere within the
British Empire. In 1910, Dr Robert Donald Keith became
the second Principal of the School. The first two years of the five-year course
were devoted to pure science studies. Physics, biology and chemistry were
taught in the first year, followed by physiology and elementary anatomy in the
second year. The remaining three years were attachment to clinical clerkships
in medicine, surgery and midwifery, which covered pathology, hygiene and
medical jurisprudence. Materia Medica was integrated into the fourth year,
where practical pharmacy was taught. Students were posted to several
hospitals, initially at the Singapore General Hospital. From 1908 onwards,
attachments were made to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Kandang Kerbau Maternity
Hospital. In 1912, the medical school received an
endowment of $120,000 from the King Edward VII Memorial Fund, started by Dr
Lim Boon Keng. Subsequently, on 18 November 1913, the name of the school
was changed to the King Edward VII School of Medicine.
In the first batch of 16 students of 1905, only seven made to the final and
graduated in May 1910 while the remaining six students graduated in four
months later and others resigned from the school. In 1919, the drop-out rate
had risen to 35%, while in 1939 the number of students failed in their final
examinations stood at 44%. At this time a hostel was built to
accommodate 72 male students from the Federated Malay States.
In 1921, the school was elevated in status to college. Between 1920 and
1930, the college went through a series of transformations, by replacing the old
teaching staff with a younger generation of professionals and also nine new
Chairs were created, the first in Anatomy in 1920, followed by Medicine,
Surgery, and Midwifery & Gynaecology in 1922 and Clinical Surgery, Bacteriology,
Biology, Bio-Chemistry, and Dental Surgery in 1926. And the tenth Chair for
Pathology was created in 1935. In 1923, the college’s new building at
Outram Road was commenced. It was completed in November 1925 and
officially opened by Sir Laurence Guillemard in February 1926. During the
opening ceremony, the College conferred Honorary Diplomas on Sir David James
Galloway, Dr Malcolm Watson and Dr Lim Boon Keng.
In 1929, Dr George V. Allen the new principal took the helm, succeeding his
predecessor Dr MacAlister. = Raffles College=
The establishment of Raffles College was a brainchild of Sir Stamford Raffles and
Dr Robert Morison. Sir Stamford, the founding father of Singapore, had
knowledge of the Malay language and culture, while Morison was a
distinguished sinologist missionary. Both men wanted to establish a centre
dedicating to the study of Malays and Chinese at tertiary level.
On 5 June 1823, a site designated for an education institution had its foundation
stone laid by Sir Stamford. Soon after that, Raffles left for England and
Morrison left for China, thus the establishment of the school never
happened. The school building was revived as an English school named the
Raffles Institution. In 1918, Sir William George Maxwell, the
Colonial Secretary of the Straits Settlements chaired the Maxwell
Committee to review the scheme to commemorate the centenary of the
founding of Singapore by Sir Stamford. The committee members were Roland
Braddell, A.W. Still, Seah Ling Seah, Dr Lim Boon Keng, Mohammed Yusoff bin
Mohammed, N.V. Samy, and Mannesseh Meyer. The working committee headed by
H.W. Firmstone recommended the establishment of a college for tertiary
education to commemorate the centenary founding of Singapore. On 12 July 1919,
the Government decided to undertake the construction of the building with the
cost not more than $1,000,000 and would contribute $50,000 as annual recurrent
expenditure as soon as the Centenary Committee had collected $2,000,000 for
the Raffles College Endowment Fund. On 31 August 1920, the Committee had
achieved the figure, amounting to $2,391,040. On 31 May 1920, Richard Olaf
Winstedt was appointed as the Acting Principal of Raffles College. The course
offered was a three-year basis. The establishment of the school was seen far
more systematic compared to the King Edward VII Medical College. The school
was situated at a site called the Economic Gardens and was designed by
Cyril A. Farey and Graham Dawbarn. And the construction took place in 1926.
On 22 July 1929, Raffles College was established to promote arts and social
sciences at tertiary level for Malayans. The courses offered were divided into
Art and Science streams. Four years later, the College Council proposed
changes in the curriculum, so that the Diploma could be furthered to a Degree
through external examinations in collaboration with universities in
England. In 1937, Sir Shenton Thomas declared the
college would have a full-time Principal. The College had its fourth
Principal, Alexander Keir, succeeding Frederick Joseph Morten. By 1939 war was
waged in Europe, and had put a halt to the development of the college. The war
in Europe came to Asia and Singapore was invaded by the Japanese in February
1942. After the war, the school was reopened
and W.E. Dyer was Principal. The future of Raffles College was uncertain, until
1948 when Dr George V. Allen who was formerly the Principal of King Edward
VII Medical College posted as the last Principal of Raffles College. The
college was amalgamated with the former, for the making of a university for the
Malayans. = University of Malaya=
In 1938 the government appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Sir
William H. McLean to study the higher education potential and progress in
Malaya. The Commission concluded that Malaya was not ready to have a
university, and that a university college would be more suitable. In 1939,
the Higher Education in the British Colonies appointed a Commission led by
Justice Asquith to further study the matter. The Commission shared the same
opinion as the former McLean Commission. In 1946, Dr Raymond Priestley, the
Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University was invited by the British Malaya
Government to continue the review of setting up a University for Malaya. The
Priestly Commission shared the same opinion as the McLean Commission, which
was to form a university college first. In 1947, the Secretary of State for the
Colonies appointed Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders to chair a commission to
study the development of tertiary education in Malaya. Initially, the
Carr-Saunders Commission shared the same opinion as the McLean Commission.
However, after the report was completed, Sir Alexander listened to the thoughts
of the Alumni Association of the King Edward VII College and also the Medical
College Students Union. He was impressed with the ideas of the President of the
Students Union, Dr K. Shamugaratnam. In 1948, the Carr-Saunders Commission
supported the establishment of a university for the Malayans.
As a result, a university named the University of Malaya was chartered under
the Carr-Saunders Commission in 1949. The formation of the University of
Malaya on 8 October 1949 in Singapore was under the merger of King Edward VII
College of Medicine and Raffles College, where the latters were established in
1905 and 1929, respectively. In Carr-Saunders Commission’s report in
1949, it was stated that "the university shall act as a single medium of mingle
for enhancing the understanding among the multi-ethnics and religions in the
back than Malaya. The University too should be modelled after the tertiary
educations in the United Kingdom of Great Britain in term of academic system
and administration structure". The Carr-Saunders Commission postulates
“the principle that all children who show the necessary capacity should enjoy
an equal chance of reaching the University; and, in particular, that no
able child should be handicapped in climbing the educational ladder by race,
religion, rural domicile, or lack of means.”
In 1959, the university was divided into two autonomous campuses, one in
Singapore and the other in Kuala Lumpur. In 1961, the governments of Malaysia and
Singapore passed the legislation to make the university a national university. As
a result of such desire, on 1 January 1962 the University of Malaya in Kuala
Lumpur was permanently located on a 309 hectare land and remained with the name.
However, the campus in Singapore became the University of Singapore.
On 16 June 1962, the university celebrated the installation of its first
Chancellor, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first Prime Minister. The
first Vice-Chancellor was former Dean, Sir Alexander Oppenheim, the
world-renowned mathematician who formulated the Oppenheim conjecture in
1929. When Oppenheim left in 1965 with no successor in sight, Rayson Huang who
later went on to become the first Asian Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Hong Kong, was asked to take over as the Acting Vice-Chancellor. He served in
that capacity for 12 months but declined reappointment to return to academic
pursuits. Chin Fung Kee, an authority in
geotechnical engineering, replaced Huang as Acting Vice-Chancellor until the
university filling the position in 1967 by the appointment of James H.E.
Griffiths. A distinguished physicist and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford,
Griffiths was also the former head of Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford
University and one of the discoverers of ferromagnetic resonance.
= Coat of Arms= The University of Malaya’s Coat of Arms
was designed under a Council established in 1961,chaired by Tan Sri Y.C. Foo. The
members of the committee involved in the design were the Chairman of the Council,
Y.C. Foo, Professor A. Oppenheim and Professor Ungku Aziz. The Coat of Arms
was officially chartered in April 1962 by Tunku Abdul Rahman, the university’s
first Chancellor. The Coat of Arms is divided into two
parts, namely the Chief and the Base. The Chief is a bundle of seventeen
strips of the leaves of Borassus flabellifer or the Palmrya palm. These
strips were used as printed material for ancient books by the Malays, long before
paper was invented. On the centre of these seventeen strips is the
university’s motto ‘Ilmu Puncha Kemajuan’. The motto consists of ‘Ilmu’
derived from Arabic, ‘Puncha’ from Sanskrit, and ‘Kemajuan’ from Malay.
These words mean knowledge is the source of progress.
In the centre of the emblem is a hibiscus of Rosa-Sinensis species
encircled by three Malayan tigers. The tigers symbolise the three main races in
Malaysia, who work hand-in-hand to protect the nation and uphold the duty
to serve the country. Rankings
University of Malaya has been ranked consistently among top 500 universities
in the world according to reputed ranking publisher such as QS, ARWU, US
News & World Report in the last few years. In 2015 it has been ranked 54th
in Engineering & Technology in QS world ranking.U.S. News & World Report ranked
University of Malaya 57th best university in the world in engineering
by its subject ranking. Vice-Chancellors
Notable Alumni University of Malaya has produced many
notable alumni that have contributed significantly towards the development of
Malaysia and abroad. Syed Amin Aljeffri
Amani Williams Hunt Abdullah Sudirman Arshad
Azalina Othman Said Abdul Khalid Ibrahim
Mohamed Khaled Nordin Anwar Ibrahim
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Mahathir Mohamad
Musa Hitam Mohd Khalil Yaakob
Adnan Yaakob Ungku Aziz
Mohamad Hassan Muhyiddin Yassin
Daniel Dorall Fadzilah Kamsah
Khasnor Johan Lee Hong Susan Lim
Lim Hock Siew Mohd Sidek Hassan
Ramon Navaratnam Ong Pang Boon
S. R. Nathan Rex Shelley
Gary Yap Mohd Shafei Abdullah
Zeti Akhtar Aziz Rynn Lim
Victor Gu Nga Kor Ming
Ngeh Koo Ham Teresa Kok
Edwin Thumboo Satwant Singh Dhaliwal
Sivarasa Rasiah Aznil Nawawi
Shirley Geok-lin Lim Bryan Nickson Lomas
Razali Ismail See also
University of Malaya Botanical Gardens Rimba Ilmu
University Malaya Medical Centre Centre for Foundation Studies
National University of Singapore References
External links Official website.
Coats of arms of the National University of Singapore and its predecessors