Universiti Malaya (UM), the nation's oldest university, achieved its highest ranking yet in the QS Asian University Rankings 2012, taking the 35th spot among 300 universities assessed.

This represents a significant improvement from last year's ranking of 39, which in turn was an improvement from its 42nd place in 2010.

UM attained a score of 71.4 out of 100 points. It was assessed as ‘fully comprehensive' in the category of focus, and ‘high' in the category of research intensity.

The top university in Asia according to the ranking, is Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, with a perfect score of 100, followed by the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a score of 99.08.

The QS Asian University Rankings have been carried out since 2009, in partnership with The Chosun Ilbo newspaper of South Korea, to rank the top 200 Asian universities.

Last week UM vice-chancellor Prof Gauth Jasmon asserted that UM would be among the top 100 world ranked universities within five years.

167 on world universities ranking

International university rankings have always been a source of contention in Malaysia.

Last year, UM managed to enter the list of the top 200 universities in the world, according to the QS World University Rankings 2011/2012. It improved by 40 places to move into 167th position.

However, all Malaysian universities were out of another ranking by Times Higher Education (THE), which ranks the top 400 universities in the world.

This prompted Higher Education Minister Mohd Khaled Nordin to declare that it would need eight years before Malaysian universities could hope to qualify in the top 400 ranking of THE.

QS rankings primarily use academic peer review as an indicator for university ranking, but also take into account recruiter reviews, faculty-to-student ratio, citations from public research and degrees of international orientation.

The QS World University Rankings for 2012/2013 are yet to be announced.