There is no truth to criticism that students had to pay more than the normal tuition fees stated by the universities for students accepted through UPU, the centralised admissions unit, he said on the sidelines of Ideas: National Higher Education Conference 2017 held at Sime Darby Convention Centre here.
He said what had happened was that some universities had established private entities that offered unsubsidised courses.
Idris was refuting criticism by student group UM Association of New Youth (Umany) which blamed the government’s budget cuts for forcing public universities to generate more revenue through higher tuition fees.
Umany found there was a direct intake system which enabled students to enrol in engineering courses by paying the full tuition fees on University of Malaya Centre for Continuing Education’s (UMCCed) website.
The student group said the UMCCed website showed the unconventional process for prospective students with financial capability to enrol directly in the programme by paying the full fees of up to RM90,000.
Umany said the different intake systems had created an uneven access to tertiary education.
Idris said a student accepted into a programme to study medicine at a public university only needed to pay RM3,000, one of the lowest fees in the world.
“The same goes for an engineering course as you need to only pay about 5% at public universities of the total cost of more than RM30,000,” he added.