The New Straits Times spoke to several university heads, who voiced their grievances over the budget cuts and urged the Government to not impose further cuts to universities’ operational budgets in Budget 2017.
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Vice-Chancellor Professor Wahid Omar said public universities should be given the authority to adjust their fee structure.
“Now is the time for survival, and we need to survive. We are not asking for much, because we understand the Government is doing what it can. We hope the Government will allow more freedom to universities in collecting fees.
“For example, if the students’ families can afford the full tuition, why should they pay only 10 per cent? Students who are well off should be able to pay a higher fee,” he was quoted as saying, referring to the tuition fee subsidies of up to 90 per cent given to public university students.
Wahid said the fee restructuring proposal could be broken down into three tiers, for instance, the bottom 40 per cent (B40), the middle 40 per cent (M40), and the top 20 per cent (T20) – grouped according to household income levels.
The B40 could continue to enjoy the 90 per cent subsidy, while the two other groups could be made to pay more, based on their capabilities, he said.
“There is no reason public universities cannot do this, as public universities have been delivering education of high quality all this while.”
The daily also spoke to Malaysian Academic Associations Congress (MAAC) President Professor Mohd Idrus Mohd Masitin, who said many faculties in public universities had seen researchers abandoning their studies.
“With cuts made to the universities’ budgets, some (universities) are even forced to halt entirely their allocations for research.
“This leaves students and lecturers with no choice but to abandon research altogether, or struggle to raise money somehow, if they want to pursue their research,” Idrus said, adding that budget cuts had also impacted the universities’ teaching and learning processes.
Checks by the daily revealed that activities in research laboratories of several universities were kept to a bare minimum and some labs were even saddled with equipment dating back two decades.
The limitation on practical teaching methods due to non-functioning computers had also seen students being asked to look up examples on Youtube at home, said the report.
Apart from that, many lecturers are also reportedly forced to fork out their own money to hold conferences, which can cost up to RM1,300, failing which they risk falling short of their Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
Idrus, a lecturer at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, said financial constraints at universities had also caused an increase in “research squatting” – which refers to the practise of a researcher “hitchhiking” on others’ research papers – to meet their KPIs and to increase their number of references.
He urged the Government to consider cuts to allocations for universities’ development, instead of operations, as it would allow academicians to attend training courses and conferences, and keep their critical activities afloat.