At 56, Professor P Ramasamy of UKM is potentially at the prime of his academic career. The best is yet to come. Instead of tapping into Ramasamy's potential to enhance UKM's academic excellence, the university made him take retirement.

The retirement age of 55 adopted by the university is ridiculous and outdated. The life expectancy at birth of Malaysians in 1955 was 49. I can understand why the government then considered those aged 55 very old hence retiring them to prevent them from dropping dead at work. But the life expectancy at birth for males now is 73.

Furthermore, we can expect academics like Ramasamy to live longer than the average population. This is because the average population consists of people from the lower social-economic groups such as labourers who are expected to have a lower life-expectancy.

So, a 56-year-old is a spring chicken with plenty of productive years ahead. Why retire Ramasamy? I doubt any world-class self-respecting university would force a 55-year-old professor with 12 current PhD students to retire.

The department in the university risks becoming a pariah in the academic circle for ill-treating academics and students.

I won't be surprised if Ramasamy, who has worked for over a quarter of century at UKM, could have a further quarter of century to contribute to the world of academia.

I hope private institutions that value excellence in research would employ Ramasamy and other good academicians who have been rejected by the public universities.