Professor Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi
UCSI University

The purpose of this short writing is to help the Ministry of Higher Education reform and rethink public universities to answer some of the problems that educational bodies and the public has raised.

Firstly, there was a scathing report that said the budget for Malaysian public universities in the last few years have been on par with other developed nation but its performance in research output, employability and enrolment leaves much to be desired. Secondly, the Ministry is facing criticism to justify its massive budget cuts.

The Ministry’s weak response on university’s over dependence on public funding is at best confusing. My answer to these problems is to reexamine the role of public university and make it more relevant to our own social and economic development.

In case one has not noticed, our social fabric is in a complete shambles with racial tensions, religious bigotry and extremism, crime, health issues, drug addiction, institutional failures and mistrust and many others. Not one in many of these issues do I find any serious attention by local academics.

If we can reinstate the primary role of universities to be part and parcel directly in social development, at least we can settle 75% of our problems. We would not need any silly ranking by some dubious body to tell us whether we have addressed the issues plaguing our country. We could see ourselves how we are doing. Read the rest of this entry »