An immediate problem with these budget cuts was the degree of them over such a short time, added Hunter. “This gave some of the universities that received cuts above 10 per cent very little time and latitude to adjust their spending patterns.”
The result includes crisis in some areas of the education system like the teaching hospitals, warned the former Associate Professor. “For example, the renowned Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), which has been providing medical treatment to people who can’t afford private insurance, has according to Universiti Malaya’s Dean of Medicine Professor Adeeba Kamarulzaman, been forced to consider cutting back on both medical services and teaching.”
The present crop of vice-chancellors are used to managing their universities from guaranteed budget allocations, continued Hunter, where it hasn’t been necessary to be too prudent with spending. “They also have little experience in attracting other sources of revenue.”
“It’s hard to leave a gravy train.”
Malaysian public universities need to change the way they operate to cope with budget cutbacks, ventured Hunter.
To a great extent, he said, universities are limited in what they can do.
The issue of autonomy and budget cuts was something that has yet to be addressed by the government, he pointed out. “This has left universities with very limited options.”
“Some universities are letting go foreign lecturers, cutting down on faculty operational costs such as stationery and air conditioning and travel, etc.”
These measures will not make up for the budget shortfalls and could seriously hamper the ability of the public universities to improve standards, he lamented. “This is hardly changing university operations. It will affect staff and student morale as well as hinder university development along the lines of the ‘Soaring Upwards’ higher education blueprint the government released last year.”
One barrier to developing new ways to operate is that the universities are not autonomous bodies. What courses universities offer, fees they charge, who they enrol, who they employ, and generally how a university operates was governed by the Ministry of Education.
In the words of Higher Education Minister Idris Jusoh, noted Hunter, the budget cuts will “train local universities to be more efficient in the implementation of programmes”.
There is precedent for this in the Australian experience back in the 1980s where there was a similar magnitude of cuts made to Australian universities, and they turned to research collaboration with industry, running more industry management programmes and drastically increasing the number of foreign student enrolments, recalled Hunter, an Australian who calls southern Thailand home. “Even university chairs became university-sponsored.”
“Universiti Malaysia Kelantan has done this through the Maybank Professorial Chair of Entrepreneurship, within their Entrepreneurship Faculty, a great example for other universities to follow.”
More public benefactors are needed to help fill the gap, conceded Hunter, but universities need to work on developing business models attractive to potential donors.
There’s plenty of scope to collaborate with industry on research, and management training as education is a massive growth industry in Malaysia that most universities have missed todate, he said. “There’s plenty of room to aggressively recruit more foreign students who are willing to pay higher university fees if the market was tackled correctly.”
“Public universities in Malaysia should become more student-friendly.”
One of the major effects of budget cutbacks has been loans to students, said Hunter. “Of late, students in Malaysia have also been very vocal about whom they want to be Vice-Chancellor.”
“It’s now time for them to be vocal as well about what type of education system they want for the country.”
In every crisis, there’s opportunity, he said.