| Higher Education Revolution During Ninth Malaysia Plan |
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Institutions of Higher Learning Management Department director-general Datuk Dr Hassan Said
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By Santha Oorjitham
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Higher Education is planning a major overhaul of tertiary education from 2006 through 2010.
"We want to start as soon as possible. The impact must be felt by the end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan (NMP)," its Institutions of Higher Learning Management Department director-general Datuk Dr Hassan Said told Bernama.
For example, he said the ministry hopes to bring the lecturer-student ratio at the 17 government universities (with an 18th to be opened next year in Terengganu) down from 1:20 to 1:16, increase the number of 17- to 23-year-olds in higher education from about 30 percent now to 40 percent, and raise the number of foreign students from about 40,000 now to 100,000 by 2010.
The ministry is now drawing up a higher education policy based on the recommendations of the committee headed by Tan Sri Dr Wan Zahid Noordin, a former director-general of education, which spent the first six months of the year studying the direction of local institutions of higher learning as well as their needs and challenges.
Academics and educationists provided feedback to the Wan Zahid committee and have stressed the urgent need for a revamp of higher education.
Dr Hassan, who is a member of the committee, said the ministry had set up a panel to look at the recommendations over the next few months before being presented to the Cabinet for approval.
The ministry had also asked all universities to come up with strategic plans for the NMP period.
" The universities are fine-tuning their plans and will present them at a final meeting in January for the ministry to follow through," Dr. Hassan said.
The "education revolution" is expected to focus on seven areas. Firstly, it proposes a new governance system, including a financial mechanism, to make sure that public universities can perform competitively while remaining accountable to the government.
The government, which funds these universities, wants a flexible mechanism to check them. Secondly, the ministry wants to improve accessibility so that more students can enrol for higher education, including people from rural areas and poor families.
Thirdly, the ministry wants to increase the number of students in higher education from about 600,000 now to 1.6 million by 2010.
But fourthly, while raising enrolment, the ministry wants to ensure quality teaching and learning. "Otherwise, we are not producing the right future manpower of the nation because there will be more unemployed graduates and people who cannot fit the working environment," Dr Hassan said.
Quality indicators will cover the staff, infrastructure and content.
Fifthly, the ministry wants to strengthen research and development. "We feel the need to improve in publications, with more post-graduate students creating a research culture," said Dr Hassan.
Sixthly, the ministry wants to increase the capability of lecturers. For example, only 30 percent of lecturers now hold PhDs and this is expected to be increased to about 75 percent.
Finally, the ministry wants to internationalise tertiary institutions, with the assistance of its special envoy, Datuk Seri Effendi Norwawi.
Noting that the global higher education market is worth an estimated US$2.5 trillion, Dr Hassan said Malaysia hoped to increase its very small share.
The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Prof. Datuk Dr Ibrahim Ahmad Bajunid, who is also a member of Wan Zahid committee, is optimistic about turning universities around.
"In the university of the future, the curriculum will be personalised, individualised and customised. We also need to change the age profile in line with lifelong learning, giving credit for prior experience."
The chief executive officer and principal consultant of TQM Consultants Sdn. Bhd. Dr Ranjit Singh Malhi said employable graduates could be achieved with close working relations between universities and the industry on skills needed.
"In most jobs, except law and medicine, technical skills alone will not ensure survival in the marketplace. Graduates need critical and creative thinking, inter-personal, presentation and problem-solving skills.
The chairman and principal consultant of Transformational Leadership Development Sdn. Bhd., Syed Barkat Ali Syed Ali, said quality education hinged on the use of an internationally popular language such as English.
"Without diminishing the importance of the national language, using English would be good.
"The more the vocabulary, the more concepts can be transmitted. It would be nice to be bilingual but if that is too taxing, some subjects could be in Malay and some in English," he said.
-- BERNAMA
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